Ten things I hate about diabetes and ten things I love about my life

Ten things I hate about diabetes

1. That I can not just go and do some exercise without the planning skills needed for a major event which starts 2 hours prior to the actual exercise!
2. When I start rearranging the house or doing some gardening and the inevitable hypo hits….hate that
3. The fat that is created on my stomach from so many years of injections and pumping
4. Finger tips covered in black spots and the reliance on machines
5. People who do not really understand what it is like (no matter how well meaning) telling me what life with diabetes is like, or that it is easy, or ask questions they really should know the answer to after all these years
6. The effort needed just to do everyday tasks while walking a tightrope
7. That it is never ending, it will never go away
8. Hypos and hypers
9. The way it has messed up my stomach and there is nothing I can do about it
10. The feeling of fear about all the “what if’s”  (even though I can usually rationalise an answer) – what if my pump breaks, what if I am out and forget my blood glucose machine, what if I have a huge hypo when I am on stage talking to hundreds of people, what if I have a huge hypo and my children don’t know what to do, what if I get sick when I am travelling and I am all alone, what if I end up with more complications – you get it as it goes on and on…

Ten things I love about my life with diabetes (coz I love my life but I don’t love diabetes and am not going to do a “ten things ten things I hate about diabetes and ten things I love about diabetes thing)

1. I have lived with diabetes for 34 years!
2. I challenged them all and have three stunning children, one being born when I was 40!
3. I have some complications but my eyes, kidneys, heart and legs are in pretty good shape
4. I love my work and have made a life around diabetes, not despite it, not to fight it, just because it is part of my life
5. I have wonderful friends and family and am very very lucky
6. I love waking up every morning and I love going to sleep every night
7. There is so much joy in small moments – hearing a bird sing, seeing the light as the sun sets, smelling a tree or the earth when it has just rained, holding my child’s hand, the sound of the ocean
8. I have enough and a comfortable life despite dreaming of more
9. The opportunities and possibilities in front of me are endless
10. Due to some of the terrible times in my life I have learnt to take control of the way I think and the way I feel, enabling me to feel at peace and happy with my life, the whole amazing, glorious, terrible, mixed up tightrope walking lot of it.