Bit late posting today as fully engrossed in sorting hubby's Christmas presie. All sorted and sent off to the north pole!
6.4 today. And my little bit of chat won't be as little as it should be but you know me
I expected my BS to be in the 6s as i was out for a meal last night, so I'm not in the slightest bit surprised. The diabetic group Xmas night out. Which was full of surprises! Ive only been to one meeting, Octobers. Novembers i couldnt make as it was my wedding anniversary. And Decembers was in actual fact last nights meal. We met at a really lovely restaurant that is renown for a cracking carvery. About 20 of us. And on a Monday its BOGOF. So 2 for £8! Everyone is really friendly. Some partners were there. My hubby was invited. He is a great mixer and before long we were chatting with everyone and anyone whilst perusing the menu. I got excited. Halloumi fries in the starters section. I'm in! I plumped for the carvery. The safe option. I will tell you a bit about the food first.and what was eaten. Most had starters. Many had prawn cocktail. This came with 2 slices of crusty white bread on the side. I wondered if this might be left to one side. Indeed not. Well, it is xmas. Everyone went for the carvery option. Now I'm not one to watch what others eat. Well i should rephrase that. I never used to be! Til dx. I couldnt help but notice everyones plates were full.... to capacity. 2 yorkshires in many cases and enough roasties/potatoes to sink a battleship. Lots of veg, stuffing, gravy etc. Then dessert options. A few went for the caramel ice cream (large). Others the xmas pudding with custard. I was full. No cheese board anyway so i wouldnt have bothered. I would normally love to see people enjoying their food. And bye God they were. But I felt really really sad. At this point i had mingled and chatted with quite a few of the group around and about me. Diabetes came up as you would expect. No they dont monitor their BS. Even the insulin dependent ones 'not that often'. Told not to bother. Their diabetes has been progressive. Many taking 2 or more meds just for diabetes. Others saying they 'rattle' with the amount of tablets they take. Do you know your hba1c I asked a couple but they didn't. They just put their lives in the hands of the medical team. Apart from 3 of those there (myself included) all were extremely over weight. No doubt over weight due to the insulin! And they eat what they like, apart from cutting back on 'sugar'. I brought up carbs being sugar. The 2 ladies in on this conversation had no clue how much sugar was in bread, pasta, pots, rice. They have been diabetic for many years. Probably never been on a DESMOND course. I told her i dont eat those high carb foods, or extremely rarely. One of the ladies reacted with a shocked expression 'what, you dont eat any of those things, what DO you eat'. I said mainly eggs for breaky. Another horrified look. The lady was warned off eggs due to cholestrol being high. She doesn't touch them for that reason. I could go on. It was the exact opposite of the diabetic dining experience I thoroughly enjoyed in September in Birmingham which made me very happy and very proud to be a part of a group of such focused individuals taking back control of.l their health. These poor people still put their faith and health in the NHS who ate letting them down and in fact slowly killing them.
The organiser who has been t2d for over 15 years who says hers is 'progressive' has asked me to talk about my journey at the next meeting in January. I was looking forward to it. Kind of thinking about structuring it like a training session until some of the kind forum members advised me against this. Rightly so. Gently does it. It's going to be extremely challenging! I want to be as helpful in my 30-40 minutes as possible. But after last night I can see what I'm upnagainst. They are all so lovely and have been through so much on their journey (the lady opposite me is registered blind, she has liver problems due to tablets she took in 2008 which she thinks gave her t2d). She is so very tiny now and in very poor health. She hasn't been out since July. She was so enjoying her food and the chats. My heart felt so heavy. Wanting to help and offer guidance on controlling BS and helping them feel better, yet knowing I'm going to be going into what they really should not be eating to regain health. This particular lady was 76, lives on her own and is frail looking too. I'm going to talk about my journey (
@xfieldok is on board, we will do it as a team which i think will work really well). Going to hand out leaflets with useful info on. Not sure exactly what useful info at this point but
@Rachox your fab BS leaflet will be one of the handouts! If one person gets something out of it it will be worth out. And the word might spread.
but get on with it and look after yourself well virtually every day battling through regardless. You’re a star 
but get on with it and look after yourself well virtually every day battling through regardless. You’re a star
) 5s in the morning club! Be happy in the knowledge that your 15.5 allows me to be smug about my 11.4!
But .... I did eat a little half corn on the cob too. Mad you might say, but I thought it was one of those foods I could get away with, based on previous low PPs after sweet corn. My theory was that as I often see it come out after passing thru the dark side, maybe my body doesn’t notice it. I even avoid chewing it to help the guts crew avoid it. Anyway either that or the stress of stopping every 20 mins for a ten minute nap for the last two hours of the drive, or my local M26 being closed and sending me on a 30 minute diversion, my numbers were silly high. The libre says I was in 9s and 10s all night so the good ol’ DP has a head start. Down to 10 now so as I always think ‘I’ll live’
