It's not the end, its a new beginning

As we started with a cliched "this is what it's like" post, we end with this "this is how it was" entry.  Except that it isn't the end - at least it better not be.  (I've got a few more blogs up my sleeve for a start).

The last three days of #DPC16 (I'm finding it difficult to stop typing that hashtag - muscle memory at its finest) and the first lead in day of #YDEF16 have been exactly how you'd imagine. Whirlwind, busy, chaotic, tiring and complicated... but also fun, eye opening, insightful, and inspiring.

Pretty much everyone I've spoken to on the last day has asked me the same thing; "How's it been?"  I think my answer's always been the same - incredible.  I probably ran out of proper superlatives at the end of the first day and just settled on that one.

I said at the very start that it's hard to describe the general buzz of the conference and I'm not sure I'm any closer to being able to articulate it now.  I don't suppose that matters too much.  What I think does matter is the messages that come out of the conference.  If you've followed along with any of my tweets, hopefully you've had a sense of both the content of the individual sessions as well as the overarching messages that I think have been present.

If not, I'm going to try and present that a bit more clearly over the next few paragraphs...

I wrote yesterday about how a lot of sessions had references to individual care, some more pointedly than others.  That really feels like the essence of a lot of what I've heard over the last three days.

• Education needs to be individual, as the current offering doesn't suit everyone  
• Targets for people with diabetes need to be individual because what's achievable is different for everyone  
• Type 2 Prevention is potentially individual if we can identify those with specific factors making them more susceptible to the condition
• Transition clinics for younger people with diabetes need to have an individual approach because there are so many individual factors to consider...

People with diabetes aren't numbers.  My diabetes isn't defined by an HbA1c score of 6.6%, cholesterol of 3.2, BMI of 28 any more than the conference is defined by being 3 days long, having 3000 visitors and containing over 100 talks.  You don't get a qualitative understanding by looking at numbers - context is hugely important.

We as people with diabetes know that how our diabetes behaves.  We know that our diabetes is different to other people's.  We know that our care has to be different to other people's because we are all individuals.  The message that care has to be provided on an individual basis came out again and again, and it was very encouraging to see.

There was a clear sense that it's time to stop talking, and start doing.  I think that comes with some caveats though.  "Doing" something isn't always easy - and I think that's where a lot of us feel a sense of frustration, people with diabetes and healthcare professionals alike.   But I think that tide is changing.

I've been fortunate to sit in on some sessions where clinical teams are doing something.  Whether that's redesigning transition services for young people, putting together an integrated care model for repeat DKA admissions, or building a new way of delivering diabetes services for people across an entire CCG.  There are groups of people across the entire UK saying "I know what needs to be done, just let me do it".

Change can be a slow process.  Within an organisation like the NHS it can feel glacial sometimes.  But it's coming - you can sense it.  To me, it feels like there are so many people, doing so much to change care within diabetes that it's going to be difficult to hold it back.  You'll get swept up in it one way or another and have to decide whether you want to ride the wave or drown in it.

So where am I going with all this?  The title of this post alludes to the start of the next chapter for all of us.  The conference has been an incredible experience for me, as I hope it has for every single person there this week.  But what do we do now it's over?  Can we go back to doing what we've been doing?  Was that just three days of information and "oh that's interesting" seminars, or was it actually the start of something?

I walked out of the conference centre this afternoon with a range of emotions.  But the one that I hope to carry forward most of all is that sense of inspiration to do something.  I've been fortunate to meet a HUGE number of people over the last three days, clinical and #doc folk alike.  Every one of them talks about making things better, about changing what isn't working, about doing something... It feels like it's my duty to carry that on outside of the conference walls.

I think if even half the people at the conference leave with that same sense of inspiration and empowerment, the changes we've all longed for in diabetes care will be with us sooner than we all thought.  It's the end of the conference, but it's the start of something new.

Thanks to Diabetes UK for the opportunity to attend the conference, to those who I met, however briefly, to those who stood at lecterns and spoke passionately about what they've already done and what they still strive for, and to those who followed along virtually... thank you.

So this is Christmas...

The eagle-eyed amongst you have probably spotted that I've been naming most of my recent blog posts after 'appropriate' song lyrics so this title should come as little surprise.


This is the penultimate post of 2011 so I'll be firmly on topic for today.  Next week's will be a bit of a mix of training progress and a 2011 review/2012 preview.


I'm a bit sketchy on my dates this week (blame the impending chaos of Christmas) but I think I've run twice since I last updated this - 6 miles in total.  I had a mostly very pleasant 2.5 mile jog round Centre Parcs (Sherwood Forest) on Saturday morning.  It would have been completely pleasant had I not accidentally run through a bush at the side of the road and cut my face.  Whilst this is apparently amusing, I didn't see the funny side at the time.


Tonight I've done 3.5 miles (a new best distance) in 39 minutes which is just inside a 12 minute mile time.  Here's the route:

I managed my most sustained period of running to date as well which was pleasing.  I managed all the way from the start marker (above) to practically the Crown & Cushion pub.  It's not that far (just over a mile) but it represents a lot to me which is good.  Being able to take that impact without needing a break is good and hopefully over the next few weeks I'll be able to improve on that.


I've got 3 runs left before January and I'm hoping I can get a decent 4 mile run in before New Year.  My fundraising page tells me I've got 123 days to go before the marathon.  I truly believe that if I keep chipping away at it, I'll get there no problem!


Being diabetic this week has been....challenging.  As you probably know we had a long weekend at Centre Parcs this weekend.  That basically involved eating out for 3 meals a day for the better part of 4 days.  It also meant more indulgences that a) I'm used to and b) should have.  I roughly managed my blood sugar OK.  By that I mean I probably did as best I could given how difficult it was to find time to test my blood and make an educated guess about what I was eating.  I managed a horrifying 20mmol on the Saturday morning, and swung the other way to 2.7mmol on Sunday night.


As I've probably mentioned a few times, it can be quite frustrating when you're not exercising the amount of control you should be and that was certainly true this weekend.  I also 'confirmed' something that I've suspected for a little while, which is that a bad diet, even for a short time, leads to migraines.  I was in tears with pain on Sunday night which is probably the worst I've been for a long time.  I also know that once it's started, it's a good 3 or 4 days before it subsides properly.  It's just even more of an incentive to eat properly I guess.  Apologies for that segue...


I shall sign off there for this week.  To summarise, running - good, diabetes - OK, diet - causes migraines.


Thanks ever so much for all your support and kind words since I started this blog, you're all incredible and I truly thank you for all your encouragement.  Hopefully I'll do you all proud next year.  Remember you can donate (or invite others to) at the fundraising link above.   I know the charities don't affect a lot of you personally and I wouldn't dream of asking you to support something you didn't want to.  But if you know anyone who might like to then please feel free to share the link to the blog.


I hope you all have a fantastic Christmas and a good break from work if you're taking one.


Merry Christmas


Andy

Inhaler

Hi - thanks for stopping by to read.


I'll start off with an apology - I feel like the last couple of (on topic) posts have had little variation of substance and it's unfair of me to expect you to keep reading if I'm not going to try to keep to a standard.  I'll be making a more concerted effort going forward.


This week has been a 3-run week and I've managed 7.5 miles since last Wednesday.  I was feeling somewhat under the weather last week so I did a smaller, 1.5 mile route just to keep some momentum.  Fortunately my man-flu had mostly subsided by Saturday morning and so I went for my longest distance to date and did 3 miles - something I repeated this evening.

Saturday morning was OK as things go.  I'd forgotten my inhaler before I left (I have mild asthma on top of everything else) and it was incredibly icy.  I managed the route in 40 minutes which felt OK considering the circumstances.  I wanted another crack at it without the ice slowing me down and did the same route in 37 minutes tonight - roughly on track for 12 minute miles.


The problem is that I feel like I'm my own worst enemy sometimes.  I got about a mile into my run tonight before I started with stitch again.  I'd been round Leeds Christmas market after work tonight and naively thought that a German sausage then wouldn't hurt before I came home to go running.  What I neglected to tell myself is that it was still only a couple of hours before and that being in a different city doesn't actually make a difference.   I need to be a lot stricter and more disciplined with myself because silly things like that don't help.


The good news is that I'm starting to believe that I can actually make it round 26 miles if I continue to be sensible.  I'm not usually low on self belief, but I'm wary of jinxing myself a bit with this.  When I'm out running, I feel like I can actually do it and that sort of belief is pushing me on.


I'm taking a lot of care when I run and I'm getting better at measuring my stride so I'm not coming down off a curb onto my bad foot and I'm not pushing off with it going back up a curb either.  I'm also starting to feel like I can open up my stride a bit and push myself a bit more.


I've had a bit of a roller-coaster week diabetes wise.  I had a work Christmas do on Friday and I had a decent reading before bed (6 ish if I remember correctly) but it was 20.5 when I woke up Saturday morning!  In trying to correct that I ended up going low three times that day and I've felt like I've hit peaks and troughs since then rather than any real stability.   I mentioned a few weeks ago that I was sort of anticipating this with Christmas coming up.  I just need to work extra hard to keep it in check over the next few weeks now.  If I was consistently getting high readings I'd be concerned but it's just a product of the time of year I think.  Hopefully I can keep it relatively under control.


I've also finalised my fund raising page on Virgin Money Giving today - you can see it here: AndyRunsTheMarathon2012  I also gave myself the first donation to kick start it.  I've talked about the charities a fair bit over the last week or two so please feel free to skip back a few posts and read up about the work they do.  I wanted to just briefly talk about my fundraising goal before I sign off.


My aim is to raise what I'd like to think is a relatively modest amount of money for each charity - namely £500 each.  It's not a lot in the scheme of things as far as the charities themselves are concerned (for examples, it's only about 12% of the funds The Children's Hospital need just to run their diabetes camp for kids for one summer - let alone the rest of their projects) but it's a target I think I can achieve.


I worked out that if every one of my Twitter followers gave £2 (less than the price of a pint as I understand it) then I'd reach my goal with money to spare.  I'm not for a single second suggesting that I'd expect or even ask that they would, but it's just an illustration of why I think it's achievable.  I've put £50 in myself to start and hopefully that'll grow and grow over the coming months.  I'm committing that my company will make up any shortfall to the £1000 total but I'll also put in £500 extra if I can raise more than £1000 in total.  I know Christmas isn't the best time to discuss these things, especially given the current financial climate, but I wanted to just talk about my goals for fundraising and given you my honest viewpoint on what I'm trying to do.


This has been a bit of a longer post than I'd anticipated so I'll leave it there.  I need to rest my foot a bit as the aches, whilst not crippling, are worse after a run and I could do with my feet up for half an hour before bed.


Thanks again for reading (if you made it this far) and don't forget you can always find me for a chat on Twitter (@BroomOwl) or drop me an e-mail (broomowl@gmail.com).


Take care and I'll update you in my last blog before Christmas next week


Andy

Push things forward

Good evening


Firstly, apologies for this being a bit late.  I was feeling somewhat dreadful yesterday and wasn't feeling up to doing anything.  I hope you'll forgive the tardiness on this occasion.


Secondly, I just wanted to mention a few people who I've talked to this week.  Firstly, congrats to @actualdancrosby who, by his own admission could run very far at all early on in the year, completed a 10K run at the weekend in a respectable time.   Secondly, @Simple_John1 who mentioned to me this week that despite no interest in running or diabetes, he still takes the time to read this every week.  That gives me a decent indication that there's some substance in what I'm writing which is nice to know.


I'm writing this evening having just got back from a 2 mile run.  Circumstance has meant that I've done it not too long after having had dinner so I laboured round with a bit of a stitch again.  It's certainly not something I'll be making a habit of.


I also had a sly look at my time tonight which I haven't really done so far.  I ran 12 minute miles which I guess isn't too bad considering.  That'd be a marathon time of 5hrs 12 if I can maintain that.  I'd like to think I can get down to 11 minute miles by April but that's an aside.  Finishing is my goal.


I'm getting towards the stage where I need to be doing some more intensive training so I'm thinking about trying for 3 runs in a week and entering a 10K or something in the new year.  More on that next time I think.


Having felt a bit under the weather and such I've been tempted to resort to a bit of comfort eating (made all the more tempting having made gingerbread with my daughter at the weekend).  I've coped pretty well with that all things considered.  I've mostly resisted the callings of biscuits and sidestepped a tricky situation with a Kit Kat on Tuesday.  I also seem to have reduced the number of hypos I have which is a good thing.  Being able to stay in the 5 to 8mmol range is pretty good.  I'll have a better idea of how well it's been going after my clinic appointment in December.


Finally, I wanted to have a brief mention of one of my charities.  Whilst I'm sure you can all see my reasons for running for Diabetes UK (@DiabetesUK) but I felt like I should explain my reasons for supporting The Children's Hospital Charity (@tchcharity).


I suppose my reasons are two-fold.  Firstly, becoming a parent has made me appreciate all the work that children's charities do a whole lot more than I ever did.  Secondly, before my daughter was born, the doctor told me that because I have diabetes, there's about a 17% chance that she will get it as well.  And that's something I find very hard to deal with - I have pangs of guilt that I could labour her with this condition which seems so unfair.  The money I raise for TCH will go towards a diabetes camp they have for children.  I think I've mentioned before that I can't imagine a child having to cope with this condition while they're growing up and the work that TCH do feels so incredibly worthwhile.


Once again, thanks again for stopping by and reading - I do appreciate you taking the time to read.  I find it very motivating and it keeps me going when it's a bit cold and blustery outside.  You can find me on Twitter (@BroomOwl) or on broomowl@gmail.com if you fancy a chat.


Take care and I'll speak to you again soon


Andy