Start at the beginning...

Ah... but where is the beginning anyway?

I was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes on 20 January 1995, when I was 20 years old. At Exeter University, in the final year of my history degree. I'd been losing weight for months, certainly since the November of the year before, and was drinking Diet Coke like a fish (if fish drank Diet Coke, that is!) I was also eating what I liked - even treating myself with a Cadbury's Creme Egg when I finished an essay (usually at 4am!) I was tired ALL the time. I'd go to 9 o'clock lectures without a problem, but would have to come home in the middle of the day for a little snooze in order to be able to face my afternoon lectures.

You'd think that I would have put two and two together - drinking masses, losing weight whilst eating as much rubbish as I liked (and I've never been a skinny minnie) and sleeping half the day... but I didn't. That might have been because I had (what was retrospectively diagnosed as) a 'diabetic episode' three years before, when I was 17. I had all the tests, and was even checked out for the much rarer diabetes insipidus (yes, that means having to pee into a plastic jug for 24 hours to check how much urine you're producing), before finally being told 'don't worry, it was probably just a kidney infection, and you're fine now'.

I wasn't the only diabetic in my family - my grandfather had insulin dependent diabetes too (although diagnosed in much later life, and thinking about it now, I guess that people didn't used to talk about the different 'types' of diabetes back then, or even recognise that there were different types). Anyway, he was diagnosed when he was in his fifties, and his mother had also had diabetes before him. Grandad used to do urine tests (drop in the pill and watch for the orange flash!), take Bovine Lente insulin once a day, and ate an incredibly boring a rigid diet, weighing potatoes, eating single slices of bread, and having diabetic sweeties (ugh, laxatives) for his only treat. He used to have Hermesetas sweetners in a little blue dispenser (he called them 'pips') and at Christmas he ate the turkey giblets (not really relevant, but when I was little I always thought that this was connected to his diabetes!)

Anyway, back to my diagnosis. At Christmas I'd already lost about 4 stone (and yes, even for someone who could have stood to lose some weight, I looked just like a Belsen victim - all sticky out ribs and sunken eyes). Diet Coke was my constant companion... and I mean constant. On Christmas Day, at my Auntie's house, she confiscated my bottle and told me that I was just being silly. No-one really stopped to think that I might be diabetic, and yet we weren't one of those families who didn't know anything about the disease. Cut to almost a month later, and I'd finally dragged myself to the university health centre to see a doctor. The final nail in the coffin was my struggles with the hill I had to climb each morning from my Halls of residence up to my lectures. It wasn't named 'Cardiac Hill' for nothing, but still, a healthy 20 year old should have been able to walk to the top without having to stop for a rest. And what were those pins and needles in my hands all about? That surely couldn't be normal?

So, I went to the doctor, and told her my symptoms. She knew about my suspected diabetes of a few years earlier from my medical notes, and I guess she wasn't expecting to find anything when she asked me to do a urine test. In fact, she was almost in the act of throwing the little dipstick into the bin when she saw the colour that it had turned... and the colour drained out of her face a little. 'Could you be at the hospital first thing tomorrow morning?' she said, as she reached for the telephone. I overheard the words 'diabetes' and 'very high sugar levels' as she spoke to the local diabetes clinic, and then she turned back to me. 'They'll see you at 7.30am.'

7.30am! That's early for a student. Especially a student who has been so tired she's almost sleepwalking through life. Still, it seemed pretty serious and pretty frightening, so I did what I was told. I also called my parents, who said they'd meet me at the hospital the next morning. My then boyfriend came to the appointment with me, to keep me company, and by the time Mum and Dad arrived I'd already gone in to see the doctor. They found him outside eating a Mars Bar (not a popular choice with the parents, as you can possibly imagine!)

Yes, I was diabetic. My blood glucose tested that morning as 27.5 mmol/l. At the time I didn't have the faintest idea how high that was, but the words '24 hours from going into a coma' had a pretty big effect. I had all kinds of tests done that day - feet, eyes, you name it. Blood was drawn for my HbA1C. I have rotten little veins which collapse under the slightest provocation, and that day was no different. I ended up with an eight inch long bruise up and down the veins of my right arm. I don't remember what the result came back as, but the number 27.5 remains etched on my brain. I stood in bra and knickers before the (young, male) doctor as he commented on my sticky out ribs.

My first injection was during that appointment. I was put on novopens of Actrapid (with the yellow end) and Insulatard (with the green end). The doctor explained that the needles were very fine, and had a coating which would mean that the injection wouldn't hurt. I did my own first injection. Thank goodness I'm not squeamish. Quite the opposite, in fact. I'm reputed to be bomb-proof, and was always first in line for injections at school. That's not to say that I started out at the head of the line, but by the time the other kids had either freaked out at the sight of the school nurse, or chosen to slip behind me in the queue, I was always the first child to actually have the injection.

The injection wasn't so bad. In fact, I just got on with things. Diabetes wasn't going to stop me. I was organised, and smart, and thought that as long as I did what I was told things would be fine. My first HbA1C after being on insulin for a few weeks was brilliant. 6.0% - which I was told was perfect. I didn't realise that I was being helped out by the 'honeymoon period' and that this wouldn't last. I was told when I was diagnosed that life would change, but that I should still be able to do anything I wanted to, although if I wanted to have kids I should do it before I was 30. Well, I was 20. I knew I did want children, but 30 was a lifetime away. That would be just okay with me. There was the so-called 'friend' who told me that being diabetic would mean that I'd have 'deformed babies' but I decided that I didn't need someone like that in my life, and tuned her out.

So, here I am, 15 and a bit years later. I'm due to turn 36 in less than a week. I'm a newlywed (married last August to my soulmate), and we're trying for a baby. My diabetes is a huge part of this picture. In the last 15 years I've got my dcotorate, lived and researched in Africa, been an academic, given up my academic job to work for the Research Councils, travelled all over the world, and acheived many of my life's ambitions, including publishing a book. I've got married to a wonderful, smart, caring man, bought a house, and started keeping chickens (eat your hearts out Tom & Barbara Good!) And my diabetes has never stopped me, although we've had our up and downs, me and my diabetes. From that wonderful control of my honeymoon period, I've had good years and bad years. My weight has gone up as high as 17 stone, when I was less than 9 stone at diagnosis. I've lost and regained my weight on three different occasions, and it's hard - damned hard, when you're contending with diabetes too. My job is pretty full on, involving lots of travelling, both in the UK and overseas (often to developing countries). Hardly a week goes by when I don't have to travel up to London at least once, and that often involves getting up at 5am in order to make it in time for a 9 o'clock meeting. My diet and health has sometimes taken second place, and my HbA1C has sometimes reflected that (although it's never been higher than 9.5, that is NOT GOOD ENOUGH).

In October last year I decided to take myself in hand and went on a diet. 1200 calories a day - lots of fruit and veg. No crap. I'm lucky to have an extremely supportive husband who has been behind me on this all the way. He's an excellent cook with an aversion to convenience food. We have our own allotment (a recent addition), a veg patch in our back garden, and an organic veg box once a fortnight. We eat organic food when we can, and have a fabulous butcher and delicatessen just down the road. 'The fish man' drops by in his van once in a while and sells us seafood for the freezer. And, we bake our own bread (well, I do mostly, although hubby's started to knock out the odd loaf too). We haven't bought a loaf of bread for almost two years. My diet is better than it's been for years, and I've managed to lose 35lbs. The next step was to take the diabetes in hand, and my brilliant GP sorted me out with an appointment for a Pre-pregnancy clinic for Diabetics here in Bristol. I've been going since January, and it's been inspiring. The best thing that's happened for my diabetes in a very long time. But that's for another post, I think.

At the moment this blog is just for me, so that I can keep track of my thoughts. I've been hugely inspired by the D.O.C. which has been the other 'best thing that's happened for my diabetes' recently. I'm reading masses of blogs by women like me, who are diabetic and thinking about pregnancy, and suddenly I don't feel so alone any more. In 15 years of diabetes, I've only known one other T1 of around my own age, and we weren't close. Now I have a whole tribe, even if I'm only lurking and haven't been brave enough to stick my head over the parapet. If (and hopefully when) I get pregnant, I'm hoping to be brave enough to de-lurk, to start commenting on other people's blogs, and to open this blog up to the world. I want to inspire other women the way that people like Kerri Sparling and Cheryl Alkon have inspired me. That's why I'm not blogging under my own name, or giving out details that would allow people to identify me too easily (even though if someone who knew me stumbled across this blog they'd be able to guess it was me!)

Fingers crossed... and here I go.