Joyeux anniversaire.

23 May 2010
5 Comments

Happy anniversary to meeeee. Today, I have had type 1 diabetes for 16 years. Exactly half of my life. Woahhhh.

I feel simultaneously old, and fortunate today. I remember when I was 16, thinking I was pretty onto it and sort of grown up, and now I’m DOUBLE that age – crikey! The fortunate bit – I don’t have a single diabetes complication to date (despite doing my best to ignore my diabetes for many years in my late teens and twenties), and I am now fortunate to have a regime which (on the whole) works really well for me and is limited in its invasiveness in my life. I’ve been through many regimes – clear + cloudy from a…

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By Nic on 23 May 2010 at 10.45 am
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Calling on the T1 community – your advice please.

4 March 2010
3 Comments

Hi all

I got an email from a reader this week, with a few questions in it. An outline of the questions as follows:

1. Have you even been in contact with anyone around my age (26) who is using a pump that wouldn’t mind a few questions?

2. How do you start the pump process?  Do you contact your diabetes team at the hospital first (as unhelpful they may seem to be for me), or do I contact the pump suppliers first?

3. Also, what happens if I shell out all that money for the pump, and then realise it really isn’t for me?

Given that I’m no expert on things (merely an observer and player much…

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By Nic on 4 March 2010 at 8.50 am
Posted in Community, Insulin Pumps
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Free insulin pumps and consumables!

4 February 2010
11 Comments

OK, now that I’ve got your attention, I have a request to ask of you. (Sorry, there are no free insulin pumps and consumables…. but we are going to try to at least get the MoH to consider subsidising both, or just the consumables).

A friend of mine, Ruth Hill, is getting together an Application for Funding to the Ministry of Health for insulin pumps and consumables. Here is her message, below:

Right people. I URGENTLY NEED YOUR HELP. I want to make an Application for Funding to the Ministry of Health. I need emails/letters from as many people as possible explaining how your life has or would be drastically improved by the best Type 1 diabetes management out there…

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By Nic on 4 February 2010 at 10.02 am
Posted in Community, Funding, Insulin Pumps
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Bi-annual NZ insulin pumps update > February 2010

1 February 2010
No Comments

This page is now out of date. If you wish to see the most up-to-date list of both insulin pumps and blood glucose testers, please head to the Directory.

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By Nic on 1 February 2010 at 11.44 am
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Pumping and pumping and pumping.

28 January 2010
3 Comments

When I got my new pump, Aaron was over and asked me if I was going to give it a name (Aaron and Andy name everything in their lives – their cars, even the different vege plants in their garden – it’s very cute). It hadn’t actually occurred to me prior to that conversation, and given that I’d had a baby about two weeks earlier I found myself a little devoid of ideas.

“Arnie!”, exclaimed my husband. We all spun around to look at him, none of us figuring out why you’d call your insulin pump Arnie.

“Because it’s pumping and pumping and pumping”, he said (in a bad Austrian accent).

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By Nic on 28 January 2010 at 8.37 am
Posted in Insulin Pumps, Slice of Life
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