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Positive thinking :)

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PhoebeC

PhoebeC

Well-Known Member
Relationship to Diabetes
Type 1
Well there has been a few post recently that have been quite neagative about diabetes. Which is totally understandable but i just wanted to say, that although id rather not be a diabetic that i am proud i am and it does not ruin my life.

It can hard for us all and at times it seems like life is so unfair. Ok there is not yet a cure and there are lots of things that can get worse over time if you dont look afer yourself. But its not always that bad.

I think i am a beter person for my diabetes, i look ater myself more and care about things i would never even think of before.

I hope i dont seem rude or lie i am telling people what to think, sometimes i have a bad day and cry about it but we all do. Everday my diabetes effects me and has to be thought about most of the time, but i dont hate it.

We can lead healthy happy lives and most of us are. We are a wonderful bunch of people, and we need to help each other be healthier and feel better.

xxx
 
I do always think, if they ever found a cure for diabetes us diabetics would probay take over the world! The amount of planning, adapting, multitasking etc that being diabetic involves makes us pretty strong, efficient and powerful, if diabetes was taken away all that spare capacity would be a real force to reckon with!!!
 
Nice post Pheobe thank you,diabetes is a very depressing condition or it can be , and sure enough we are not robots we all have bad days and its good theres a place like this were we can come, imagine if this forum did not exist some of us would feel like it was the end of the world, an d i guess without the diagnosis id still be eating the same c**p foods day in day out whereas now i aint im looking after myself.
 
I agree, nice post.

The D (to a certain degree i hasten to add) hasn't stopped me travelling/climbing a mountain/kickboxing/having a baby/driving/learning/conquering the world!

I think the key is to try and look after yourself as best as you can which prevents complications. I have to admit though, the longer i have been diabetic, the more it scares me strangely (doesn't help when as a child you read books that say you won't live past 40)!

Perhaps i will take Northes approach of getting the longevity medal for diabetes...i am nearly there (and still so young 😉)

I agree re the forum and if there was a cure for us diabetics - Aymes your post made me chuckle :D

Bernie xx
 
I agree Phoebe- thats what was so nice yesterday about the 10km race- everyone seemed to have made it round and there was the whole of the diabetes massive at the end eating sandwiches! There were casualties on route, but we have to take so much care of ourselves to do these things and on the way round I think we actually have a better chance, not a lesser chance of sucess!

What we put up with sometimes, we should be proud.

If diabetes was taken away from me, I dont think I would even need the internet! 🙂
 
Nice post, Phoebe, I agree it's not all doom and gloom, although I did think that when I first got diagnosed.

I just had a fabulous weekend in the Peak District with a big group of lovely people, doing lots of outdoor activities. There was another diabetic guy there too, but not one single person commented about us injecting, and we did all the activites available.... caving, mountain biking, swimming, walking, I managed to have only one hypo and successfully avoided an erroneous full-sugar coke! Like SugarBum says, sometimes we should be proud, of all the "behind the scenes" planning that we do for things that other people take for granted.

When I got diabetes, my friend who had had it for 10 years said "Don't let it stop you - just carry your pen and some sweets and you're away" and I know it's not that easy and some days it just doesn't work, but I try to take that attitude.
 
Pigeon said:
When I got diabetes, my friend who had had it for 10 years said "Don't let it stop you - just carry your pen and some sweets and you're away" and I know it's not that easy and some days it just doesn't work, but I try to take that attitude.
Click to expand...

Gotta say i love this and i think/hope what i do subconsciously. My other thing i have to have is a credit card on me 😉

Bernie xx 🙂
 
Thats a good attitude to take Pigeon. Your weekend sounds amazing by the way! See there is something else to be proud of, you did all that and only 1 hypos- pretty damn good 🙂

I dont want to sound too much of a hippy, but I think perhaps I 'made peace' with my diabetes a couple of years ago. Im not often angry with it. I wouldnt necessarilly chose it, but some very positive things have come of it, Ive met some great people along the way.
 
It was a great weekend! The strange thing was that nobody did the "diabetes police" thing to me all weekend, but I did the "diet police" thing to someone else! A guy with a dairy allergy was eating a flapjack and I said "Won't that have butter in?" without thinking. Obviously he'd checked that it was safe for him to eat it first. How annoying am I?? But it also made me think that these people we get cross with for saying silly things are only well meaning too, albeit in a clumsy way at times. Perhaps I shall make peace with the diabetes police!
 
How I wish I could share your sentiments Phoebe, but after 25 years of type one I do struggle to find any positives about living with this condition, although I except there are much worse conditions and illnesses to live with. Probably eating healthy and watching and maintaining my weight, bp and cholesterol are a few positives, but I am sure I may have already been monitoring these as I got older. Someday I would love to wake one morning and not have to endure the daily ritual of testing and injecting, to wander around without all the excess baggage of insulin pens and meter equipment, and not have my days dictated to by a condition that I never asked to enter my life in the first place. Diabetes aside, I am a very content and happy man, but diabetes is, and will always be a pain in the bum!🙂
 
Oh thats really weird when you catch yourself doing it to someone else isnt it?! Thats really funny pigeon!

I have a friend with a seriously bad nut allergy and has to carry her epipen with her all the time. We went on holiday last year and I became the "nut police", constantly doing her head in! And also reminding her about her pen all the time like it was a novopen or something- dreadful. I think diabetes has a lot to answer for! I virtually sifted all the nuts out of weymouth....oh so carried away!
 
It seems we just can't stop being organised! Perhaps we should extend the advice to "Just carry your pen, some sweets, a credit card, boss other people around, and away you go"
 
I try and stay positive too, and some very positive things have happened because of my diagnosis. I'm certainly looking after myself better than I might otherwise have been, and also understand much more about how the body works etc. I think I have been lucky in many ways though, which does help. I was already quite fit and active and ate a reasonably good diet. I had stopped smoking many years prior to diagnosis. I think it must be much harder for people if they have to radically change their diet and lifestyle and who may already have some complications from being undiagnosed for a long time. The poems I write about diabetes always have an element of humour about them because it seems so many people feel compelled to write anguished, doom and gloom poetry which I don't think helps you to accept it. Laughing at it is better! 🙂

Don't get me wrong though, I know how dreadful it can be for so many people, but I think that being a part of a place like this is a tremendous help in alleviating those darker moods.
 
And this is why i love the forum because we are all amazing 🙂 xx
 
The best thing about being diabetic is all the amazing people on this forum. DIabetes is something we can all live with out, but this forum is one of the biggest positives going.
 
brilliant post i am starting to feel more postive about the D this time last year after starting on insulin i was a wreak but now i am back at a job i love i cant remember the last time i felt so good and even after the last couple of months where there was problems i picked myself up and started again and it was this forum that help so thank you guys:D
 
Thank you Phoebe, Im glad someone is positive - I was getting worried for my daughter when she get older that she will get angry or be negative, now I hope she will be positive like you 🙂
 
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