The accuracy of the ‘180 decisions a day’ stat is somewhat questionable. Once, a long time ago in diabetes land, a blog post from Stanford University claimed a study showed that people with diabetes make that many health-related decisions each day. And it stuck and became folklore. It gets thrown around a lot! I’ve used ..read more

I’ve been wondering how different diabetes would be if all we needed to worry about was the actual tasks of doing diabetes. ‘All’ doesn’t sound right, because I know it would certainly still be a lot. Diabetes tasks are many and constant. But if the noise disappeared and with it all the other factors that ..read more

I would do almost anything to avoid a visit to the emergency department. The times it’s been unavoidable have never been fun. They’ve been chaotic, scary and generally involved some sort of battle about my diabetes. Sometimes it’s been a demand to remove my pump, or refusal to accept CGM data. One time, I was ..read more

So often, there is amazing work being done in the diabetes world that is driven by or involves people with lived experience. Often, this is done in a volunteer capacity – although when we are working with organisations, I hope (and expect) that community members are remunerated for their time and expertise. Of course, there are a lot of organisations also doing some great work – especially those that link closely with people with diabetes through deliberate and meaningful community engagement.  Here are just a few things that involve community members that you can get involved in! AID acc ..read more

‘A fire has been lit.’ They were the words I wrote in my first post about AID access in Australia earlier this year.  There are some truths about grassroots advocacy that I have always known to be consistent. It has to come from community. If the issue isn’t important to a significant number of community members, nothing will happen. Advocacy efforts are truly organic. To be real and honest to the consultation process, there cannot be any pre-conceived ideas about the results of that consultation. Or rather, there needs to be an acceptance that agility and swift pivots are necessary ..read more

It’s never hard to find a source of diabetes stigma. Because sadly, it’s all around us. And right now, the source seems to be much of the discussion about the report from the Australian Parliamentary Inquiry into Diabetes.  Yes, I was very excited about the report last week when I was writing about the recommendations and accompanying content about increasing access to pumps and AID systems. That was incredible news, and it was terrific to see that the community-led efforts were met with such a positive outcome.  But the messaging more broadly hasn’t been so great and it’s very disap ..read more

There are different types of burnout. Diabetes burnout, advocacy burnout, and just plain life burnout.  Diabetes burnout rears its ugly head for many of us living with the condition – sometimes starting as diabetes distress before building and building.  Advocacy burnout seems inevitable the more I discuss it with advocate friends. The living with, working in, supporting others with, diabetes becomes a lot. Too much. So much.  And life burnout seems to be inevitable in the fast-paced, never-pause-for-a-breath, always-switched-on lives we live.  When the three collide it’s a ..read more

Poo, poop, crap, shit – whatever you want to call it, it’s not really a topic for polite dinner table conversation. So, if you’re at a polite dinner table, bookmark this and come back later. If you’re, say, on a flight to Orlando, stick around. I’m writing this on a flight to Orlando. The topic feels somewhat appropriate, but I digress.  This is the one about bowel cancer screening.  It all started back at the end of last year. I turned fifty and was suddenly on government watch lists for screening different parts of my ageing body. I wrote about my breast cancer screening a couple o ..read more

In most cases, the answer to the question in the title of today’s blog post would be ‘no’. At best there might be a nod to some sort of involvement of people with lived experience. Most likely, there would have been some avenue for ‘feedback’ and that would be touted as ‘consultation’ and ‘engagement’. Spoiler alert: It’s neither.  The impact of co-design when done well can’t be underestimated. Have a look at D-Coded Diabetes for one example. This brilliant resource brings together PWD, researchers and clinicians to improve access to and understanding of diabetes research. The development ..read more

Eleven years ago on Mother’s Day, my friend Kerry started something on her socials. Kerry’s mum sadly died when Kerry was just six years old. She doesn’t have a single clear photo of the two of them together. And so, Kerry has urged her mum friends to make sure they take a photo with their kids – a really simple and special way to make sure that memories are recorded. (You can search for #KTPhotoForMum to see some lovely shared posts.) We’re not short of photos in our household – who is in the age of smart phones? – but I especially love the album that I have of Mother’s Day photos of me and o ..read more