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How are you all doing?

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everydayupsanddowns

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Just checking in folks.

Hope everyone is coping, and has managed to find the level of separation/isolation that they are happy offers them reduced risk, while also allowing life to continue.

Anyone found any particular difficulties or (even better) any unforeseen benefits and opportunities from this peculiar stage in all our lives?

Any top tips to share?

Any long-forgotten hobbies being resurrected?

Is ‘working from home’ working out (if you’ve been able to arrange that?)

Any book or box set recommendations?

Hang in there folks. It will all be over by Christmas (as they used to say in the war!)
 
I'm OK with the lack of wider social contact, I like gardening and walking, and I have got OH to talk to. I’m finding my two adult children keep ringing me up for a chat in the evenings, though, because they live alone, and are both finding it hard working from home in their respective houses with nobody to talk to all day.
 
Me and Hubby are doing fine, he has no health issues, so i send him out to get the odd things we need. Shops around here are not too bad. Nobody wants the ground almond or coconut flour, sugar free jelly, or konjac noodles LOL :D. Our son needed nappies for his youngest and we managed to get him a couple of packs to keep toddler happy! Other than that, its been good so far - (although i know we are going to miss the grand-kids terribly, 1 has autism and doesnt really understand why 'grumpy nana' (Grampy & Nana, although i think she was right 1st time 😉) cant visit for a while.

Doing long forgotten jig-saw puzzles and having daily 'championship' scrabble with my other half. We have both got to work together in the garden -still clearing leaves, we have tones here!!- we used to get 40 bag fulls, (surrounded by oaks) nowadays we have a bin collection every 2 weeks, helps a lot!). Have also cleaned out the garage and unfolded the ping-pong table. Other tasks are lined up! so far so good. Baton down the hatches!
 
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I feel a lot calmer today. Had a mini meltdown this morning, which isn’t like me at all but I got totally overwhelmed with it all. We decided to go for a walk ( see my #1000milechallenge thread in “ exercise”) as it was a beautiful sunny, frosty morning. We didn’t see many people but those we did all kept their distance. Mr Eggy cut the grass and emptied the compost bin, I ironed and caught up with some telly. I’ve spoken to all three daughters and that that was nice, even though we speak or message everyday anyways. I’m busy learning how to use my new camera, my brain is battered! Nothing changed yet as that’s the sort of things we’d do anyways, it’ll be next week when it will start to feel strange. No supermarket shopping or haircut or seeing the grandchildren. If the weather is nice we’ll be doing a lot of walking and gardening, even if it’s not nice we’ll still be walking. I would like to get some good photos of the birds in my garden, that needs lots of patience.
 
Hiya all went to work and crossed my fingers and prayed dint have much anxiety today which is good my throat is a bit saw but it maybe cos I had to keep repeating sorry no toilet roll paracetomols or hand gel I will probs say it instead of counting sheep to try and sleep
 
I'm a generally quite solitary person so I'm mostly feeling OK. It's distressing seeing empty shelves at the supermarkets, and if that keeps going for weeks that could be problematic. I work as a software engineer (at a small privately owned company) so I can easily work from home, and we're not particularly hit by the virus (though I'd be astonished if it had no effect). (What I really miss is my hobby of social tango, but obviously it had to shut down: a hobby of hugging strangers for 10 minutes at a time isn't compatible with social distancing. It'll be wonderful when it can return, though.)
 
Apart from work im not really doing much. The shows I had for this coming weekend are all cancelled. Work is going to be busy tomorrow. But I've got the weekend off.
 
Felt worried sick yesterday had to give myself a talking to. My main worry is that I go and look after my poorly 88 year old Mum every other week and stay for a few days but I'm not risking the train and buses. Managed to get her to answer a FaceTime call for the first time yesterday and talked to the ceiling for a while until she eventually moved the tablet and said " Ooh that's amazing I can see your face" err yes that's why it's called FaceTime! :D

Diabetes wise I'm worried about visiting the High risk foot clinic I go to every 5/6 weeks to check my foot under my plaster cast - I'm terrified something will go wrong but keep telling myself everyone is facing massive uncertainty and challenges.

I'm trying to go one day at a time and not get overwhelmed about dealing with one big block of 12 (or however long it is) weeks. Started going for walks down roads I don't usually walk down and have discovered some lovely areas locally.
 
We're 'socially distancing' ourselves as much as possible apart from going to work. My daughters are home educated so school closures don't affect us, although we are not taking them to any of the club's they attend, they're not too bothered as they're staying in contact with their friends electronically, one of the benefits of the internet!
 
Not too bad thanks. How are you doing Mike? 🙂
I have to say though, I’m off food shopping tomorrow and actually feel a bit apprehensive, as to what it will be like! Crazy! Anyways, here are some box sets / tv series I’ve watched and enjoyed:

Power.
Breaking Bad.
Bosch.
Goliath.
Vikings.
The Expanse.
Outlander.
The Purge.
Game of Thrones.
Peaky Blinders.
Mindhunter.
Elementary.
Chernobyl.
The Handmaid’s Tale.

Just to name a few!! As you might see, I have eclectic tastes. Lol.
 
I'm actually working harder right now, as my Uni got told to do everything electronically from now until the end of semester, so I've been trying to video record all my remaining lectures and do support for classes via a really utterly rubbish app called Collaborate Ultra (ptooey!).

So actually, more busy than usual, looking forward to the weekend. I guess it beats not having much to occupy yourself with. I'd like some time to process the rage I've felt at the handling of it all though. Feels like I need to release some energy.

Food wise everything is fine, as I noticed this was coming months ago and stuck things in the freezer over time, then added a few extra tins here and there. If all else fails got tons of carb-heavy stuff still in cupboards, but that's the last resort 🙂

800 calorie diet is a bit of a wasteland though, can't really satisfy myself with a milkshake for lunch if I've got nothing else to occupy me, so been having omelettes while the eggs are still fresh. Weight is still going down, but more slowly.

Thank god its Friday! (will be when you read this probably).
 
Just checking in folks.

Hope everyone is coping, and has managed to find the level of separation/isolation that they are happy offers them reduced risk, while also allowing life to continue.

Anyone found any particular difficulties or (even better) any unforeseen benefits and opportunities from this peculiar stage in all our lives?

Any top tips to share?

Any long-forgotten hobbies being resurrected?

Is ‘working from home’ working out (if you’ve been able to arrange that?)

Any book or box set recommendations?

Hang in there folks. It will all be over by Christmas (as they used to say in the war!)
Hi Mike
James and I are ok thank you , I am WFH (manager in adult social care so pretty busy),James not working or going to his football or gym or care farm or seeing his friend which is tough, but he’s doing some colouring books, reading David Walliams book, clearing leaves, bike rides by sea (live on east coast) and building 2 airfix models... whilst I am slumped over laptop trying to keep everything in order... food shopping was scary but we cook from scratch so need to keep buying fresh if possible ... best wishes to all of you and keep safe and healthy over next few weeks... I had a special birthday next week and had hired big cottage for all family but can’t risk James mixing with grandkids etc and can’t cancel so bit sad about that but health comes first ... all this put things in perspective...Maslows hierarchy and all that ,
Take care all xx
 
Life is going on as normal as far as I am concerned, except for taking Mum to the shops as my fit and healthy brat of a brother has decided it's to dangerous to go out.
As she has no TV or internet and doesn't drive with no buses nr her, it was down to me to stock her up with all she needs. So due to my MS I found an hour was more than enough at a time for shopping was fine and manageable after I collected her. Did this over 3 days. Duty done 🙂

Shops have very little of anything in them and even the huge pet warehouse in the local town had been stripped bare of all food.
Lucky for me I had ordered Milly's as normal and went to collect only to find that the owners had kindly put two bags back for Milly as they were having problems getting any fresh stocks in.

Living in the sticks does tend to have it's advantages as you can see as many or as few people as you please 🙂
 
Just at this very moment my daughter in law is in labour and we are looking after the grandchildren but I defrosted and restocked the freezer and both fridges and bought tins and dry foods the week before everything ramped up. I am fairly certain that this virus, rather than Brexit is what I’ve been having premonitions about. All the dancing, singing and music making meetings have been shut down so I will have a lot of time to fill each week but I have a lot of things I can do to occupy my time. Perhaps I can finally sort out the last of the things left from my children being at home and go through the bookcases. I am hopeful, but cautious, and glad that I do not need to venture out for some time to come.
 
We’re OK so far, have been carrying on as normally as possible but schools finish tomorrow so it will all be very strange after that! Everything has been being cancelled this week - Girl Guides, dance classes, hospital appointment which we were due to have tomorrow was changed to telephone appointment etc, so it's all feeling a bit sad at the moment. I cancelled the hospital appointment, they want all the pump data downloaded and I haven’t got a clue how to do that, plus it's meant to be daughter's annual review so if they can’t take bloods there's not much point, and I don’t want to keep her off what might be her last school day in goodness knows how long just for a phone call. Had the nurse on the phone tonight saying they have a little bit of flexibility this week and we can go into the hospital if we want, next week they are officially shutting the clinics down and it will be telephone contact only. So we've snapped up the chance of a last hospital check up, and she gave us a time a bit earlier than the one we should have had, so we can get back to school. Hopefully by the time the next one is due things might be calming down a bit.

What I’m finding hardest is the shopping situation, it gets more crazy by the day and toilet rolls are rarer than hens teeth - who the hell is hoarding them all, surely once you've got some buffer stock you only have to replace what you use?! The level of selfishness of some people is shocking and really sad. So what is usually at worst a bit of a bore has now become a nightmare, it makes me anxious each time I go out, partly because of how busy it might be and also because of how many bare shelves there may be. I'm changing tactics now, usually I plan meals and go out looking for a list of ingredients, now I think it will be a case of concentrate on what i can find and see what we can make with it. And also by touring little local shops every few days I might be able to find things which i couldn't get in the big supermarkets (eggs and flour today, yay!). By slowly buying a few extra things each time i shop we have now got enough stock of things to last 2-3 weeks if we have to isolate ourselves so as long as I can keep things topped up we should be OK. We don’t need to completely isolate ourselves at the moment but once the schools are closed we will be almost doing so anyway because there won't be anywhere else to go other than food shopping!

My daughter’s school is intending to keep her busy via Google classroom, she can log on and get work to do and can message the teachers if she needs help. They are expecting her to stick to her normal timetable, so e.g if she normally has science first lesson then log onto that part of Google classroom and see what work they have set her, even the food tech teacher is going to set practical tasks of things for them to make at home (assuming we can get the ingredients of course!). It's far more comprehensive than I was expecting, which is good, and daughter said when she's timetabled to have PE I can send her out on errands - with a list of things we need and she'll walk to some of the local shops, bless her!

I hate all of this and sometimes just want to cry, but then have to give myself a very stern talking to - we're all in the same position, nobody else is exactly enjoying it either, I know some people who are really worried about how they are going to manage financially through all this and others who have far more serious health problems than we do which makes them a lot more vulnerable, so really we are lucky and I need to get a grip and get on with it. That's how I’m keeping myself going at the moment.

Stay safe people, and hopefully before we know it we'll be coming out the other side 🙂
 
Self isolation since Monday as I developed a cough. Thought "Great, time to spend some quality time in the shed, working on an old GPO motorcycle" but this cough has got worse, and to top it I also get bronchial asthma and have a rare muscular dystrophy that affects my throat (don't look good for me does it), but what will be will be. So I'm house bound, board stupid as I'm normally on the go, at work, in the shed, helping someone fix their car or bike, bit of DIY. So just sitting and not much to do apart from think about what could happen (not that I suffer from anxiety)
 
Hi all,

Hope you are well. Was interested to know how many of you are actually self isolating even with no symptoms but as a precaution?

I'm currently classed as a key worker so will have to go into work next week as a nursery worker.. I feel ok (touch wood) but my health anxiety is mad and I didnt know what to do... I just want someone to tell me Haha!

Thank you
P xx
 
..yesterday ..I received a letter from the ✻Bowel Cancer Screening Programme✻ ..no further tests are needed at this time ..reason to be cheerful.
 
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