Hi everyone I am new to the forum but just wanted to share my experience briefly with sport and diabetes.
I've had diabetes for 17 years and have always wanted to prove that diabetes isn't a barrier to what I could achieve. (As I'm sure we all do!)
I've played football for as long as I can remember and probably got to as high as I could without making it professionally. Ive played at a county level and semi professionally but I think diabetes always found a way of scuppering me at those big moments where I had trials for the big pro teams. I remember with all the emotions of trials that I actually caused my levels to shoot through the roof and I felt like I was treading water while I was out there!
I never gave up playing the game once the dream of being a pro diminished and in the end found a game called futsal (indoor football essentially! )
After all the years of learning how football affected my diabetes I'd found the transition more difficult to this "new style" of football. It suited how I played the game more but it was more difficult to manage due to the intensity of the game being very different. Levels were far higher! Shorter and sharper. It changed the way I had to manage my diabetes but after a year of learning through trial and error I managed to get my levels to a place each week which allowed me to play to the best of my ability.
2 years later and at 26 years old I received a call up to the Wales futsal squad to play Latvia.
I'm now preparing to compete at the highest level in my sport and on a level I dreamt of getting to.
My message is simple..... I'm no superhero or fluke. I just worked hard and stayed positive. I ensured that diabetes was just a small hurdle and not a mountain to climb.
Always stay positive and believe..... learn from your mistakes, try things out and stick to the things that work for you.
I used my Diabetes to drive me harder to achieve....
I defied the odds we have against us as type 1 diabetics. We can all do it!
Hope it was a useful read.
Chris