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I've been reading the action on Twitter with a great deal of interest today. It seems like a huge proportion of the DOC are at the Roche Diabetes Social Media Summit in Orlando. 

I'll be honest, I'm more than a little bit jealous. I would love to be there, putting in some face-time for the UK, and having the chance to meet some of the amazing people I've been getting to know online for the past year.  So it's been fascinating reading the absolute flood of tweets coming from everyone there. Seems to have been more than a few ups and downs in some people getting there, but aside from that, a good time appears to be being had by all there. I'm very much looking forward to reading everyone's reports of the thing as a whole.

The question that comes to my mind though, is why don't we have anything like this over here? Or do we, and I've simply not been able to find it?

At any rate, I would love to be there to 'represent' next year. And if anyone wants to drop me a postcard from this year, I wouldn't say no!

Just a short one tonight. I sent an email to my DSN earlier this week, covering a few things. One of the points of discussion I also covered back in May, when I talked about my concerns over insulin sensitivity.

Many of you gave me advice on what to do regarding learning more about pumping, and I've been asked if I want an appointment with the pump team to discuss the whole issue. 

I figure it can't hurt to go along and talk to them, right? It's not like I'm committing to anything, and it's not as though I'm wasting their time. It might be interesting to discuss my suitability with them. 

So that's an email to be written tomorrow, then!

I went out for dinner on Friday with Nick. Tapas - yummy! 

Since the food seemed to arrive in parts, I decided to shoot for food as it came out. So some bread first, and then for some spicy tomato and potato things afterwards. Seemed to work in the end. However, we were set to leave, and I popped into the loos, and just as I was washing my hands, I realised that I hadn't actually done the second part of the injection. 

Now, I'm a firm believer of never hiding away injections - I have nothing to be ashamed of, and I would never choose to inject in a toilet over somewhere else. Yet, I just couldn't be bothered to go into the middle of the restaurant and do it there, so I decided to do it by the sinks. Just as I was inserting the needle, a little boy (maybe two or three?) and his mum came out of one of the stalls. As she helped him wash his hands, he looked at what I was doing, and turned to his mum and asked what I was 'putting in my tummy'. She didn't answer him.

I wish I'd been a bit quicker off the mark to understand what he was saying. I don't understand the voices of small children well, so it wasn't until that point where it just becomes a bit too late to reply back that I worked out what he'd been saying. So I just smiled at them, and finished what I was doing. 

I should have said it was 'medicine', but I missed my moment. And I think for some reason, that will always bother me a little bit.

So, yesterday I told you that I managed to get over myself, and actually perform at an open mic night. Hooray! That's one to cross off the list. I've had a couple of people ask me about this on Facebook. To answer these questions:

1: I sang a song called 'Out The Door', by Kate Micucci (watch it on YouTube!) Most people haven't ever heard this song, and they're more likely to have come across her as either Gooch on Scrubs, or as part of Garfunkel & Oates

2: There is no video, as I didn't take my pocket-cam with me. Maybe next time! Andrew did take a couple of photos though, as seen here. Sadly the lighting wasn't particularly flattering to either me or photography in general

It did not go perfectly. I did made mistakes, and I was unbelievably nervous. Andrew suggested I try a bit of Dutch courage to 'bring down the nerves, and bring down the crazy' - or something to that effect! So I had a rather large glass of wine first, which is a dangerous chance for me, really, as I'm a notoriously easy drunk. Sometimes one glass is all it takes for me.

But I did it. It was terrifying, but it was great as well. All the people there were really lovely and supportive. I'm only really sad that where we went is so far out that it might very well be difficult to go out there again, as I don't drive. 

Training wise: I did my workout proper yesterday. Today I did my weights, but not the WiiFit routine, because I didn't go to bed til very late, and spent the whole day walking around a theme park. 

Many thanks for all the lovely sorts who have offered to fill in for me here whilst I'm away for a week next month. I do still have one spot left, so do send me an email if you're interested in writing a guest post.

On another note, I must apologise if you've been waiting for a reply to an email, comment, or private message from me for a while. My laptop has not been working for some time now, and I currently don't have it in my possession. I'm using Andrew's laptop to blog, which means I don't often get time to respond to most emails. So if you've not had a reply from me over anything, that's why. Oh, and I have my friend Nick visiting this weekend, so I'm rather tied up over the next few days!

Just a quick note, because I'm very tired now! 

No boat trip, because I missed the last one going out. But I DID play at open mic. It went slightly wrong, but I'm told really no-one noticed.

Photographic evidence tomorrow.

I have a bit of a list, that I add to as I think of things. It's not quite a 'bucket list', but rather a list of things that I've never done, and want to get round to doing.

So far this year, I've crossed climbing a tree off that list. I've quite a few things on there, which vary from visiting Italy to actually seeing a firefly. Between now and Sunday, I'm hoping to cross one, and possibly two things off the list. 

Number one is going on a boat. No, seriously, I've never done it. Lots of people find this bewildering, but I honestly haven't. Boat cruise down the River Ouse - oh yeah.

Number two isn't a definite, but a strong possibility. This is playing my guitar in front of people. Singing at the same time, obviously. Of course I've sung in front of people many, many times before, but I've never successfully made my way through playing a song on a guitar in public.

I'm very nervous about it, and I'm not sure if it will actually happen. I feel it's probably going to be more of a case of putting my guitar in the car, and seeing whether or not I chicken out when I get there. I'm having a lot of problems as well with my fingers causing me pain on the fretboards, where I lance. Serious ouchies. 

Anyway, I'll let you know what happens.

In other news, workout was HARD this morning. I did not want to get out of bed, and I almost stopped half way through, because my arms were hurting me an awful lot. Thankfully I managed to get through it.

Something went rather wrong with my bolus for dinner tonight, and I ended up at somewhere between 14mmol/l and 16mmol/l (252-288 mg/dl). Managed to do a decent correction though, and at last check I was at 4.9mmol/l (88mg/dl). So I'll probably end up actually having to eat something before going to bed, as it turns out!

Hoorah! The Wii Fit Guy actually had some nice things to say to me this morning! Which was good, because I needed to hear him say something nice.

So, I promised to tell you what this was all for. Here we go!

What is it about?

It's about me, and friends (who will now be referred to as The D Team!) taking on a high wire obstacle course in Dalby Forest, Yorkshire. The date is yet to be securely fixed, but it will either be in mid August or very early September.

The course in question is run by a company called Go Ape. Since they themselves say it best, this is what they describe themselves as:

So that's zip wires, nets, tunnels, bridges. Oh, did I mention I'm claustrophobic, and I still have remaining issues with heights? Quite honestly, I'm also not in the right shape to take on a challenge like this. Which is why it's a challenge at the end of the day! Let's see what the course we're taking on has to offer during the two-three hours that it's estimated to take to complete it:

 I will complete this. Why am I doing it? I want to raise money for JDRF. I know I'm not alone in thinking this is an amazing charity that is doing really important work. They need our help. If that means I have to do something stupid, something beyond my capabilities, and something that's going to be really hard work for me, so that I can try and support them as much as I can - well, then I'm going to do it.

I'll be keeping you updated along the way, with more training reports, videos (almost certainly complete with the A Team theme tune, I'm sure), and more. What I'm hoping for is your support. 

I will be setting up a fixed page on here in the next couple of days, with all the details - details of the event, members of The D Team, and links to a page where you can make secure donations if you feel so inclined (which I hope you do!) I hope that when these details are up, you'll help spread the word, so you can all watch my quite probable humiliation, and help the team raise money for a fantastic cause.

No, it's not a marathon in the literal sense, but getting ready for this is going to be just as gruelling for me, if not more. 

And that's Day Four

I was determined that I would get up this morning, and do my work out before heading off to work.

I've not exactly made a secret of the fact that my sleep routine is rubbish. I struggle to get up. However, if I know I have to get up for a thing, I'll quite often wake up hours in advance, because I'll be paranoid about oversleeping. 

So, I aim to get up at 7:40, so I can do weights, jogging, my 20 minute yoga/general exercises, and a few of the balance games. What time am I awake?

5:30am. Urgh. Of course it is. I'm not going to get up then, though! But can I get back to sleep? No, not really. So I did get up eventually. 

And....drumroll, please! I did work out! I was a good girl! 

Now, just the other how many days until the event happens to go...

The Wii Fit guy. If you've played Wii Fit at all, you know who he is. That's not even the right guy, I think, but it's the best shot I could find. 

He's the 'trainer' who leads you through all the muscle and yoga exercises. I've not selected the female trainer, because I don't think I could cope with a perfectly-computer-generated woman telling me how well or badly I'm doing. I think I'd imagine she was laughing at me. So I use the man. 

First thing after getting up, I check my waking levels. 7.3mmol/l (131 mg/dl) - good to go. 40 reps with the weights, then load up Wii Fit Plus. Twenty minutes of yoga and muscle exercises.

During this time, I did find myself yelling at the Wii Fit guy (who needs a name - suggestions?). Stop telling me my body is shaking. I know my body is shaking! It's because what you're asking me to do is difficult!

Did it all though (with some minor cursing), and then did the obstacle course (most annoying game ever?), Step Plus (because it's hilariously easy) and jogging to cool down. 

That's Day Two done. Let's see if I can manage to do this all before going to work tomorrow. Place your bets, please!

Yep, that is me. With weights. Andrew has a new camera (which is really awesome), and took this one of me.

I'm working out. This is a new thing for me. Admittedly, these are fairly wussy weights - which I have just noticed say York on them! - only a total of 10lbs, but you've got to start somewhere.

Why am I working out? Well, several reasons.

Reason 1 - I was hoping to take part in this event, which I mentioned a while back now, to raise money for JDRF. Unfortunately, it looks like this isn't going to happen, because although 'my team' can afford the entry fees OK, the cost of travelling, accommodation, and food in London is not cheap, and has just been brought to my attention. So sadly (and this is sadly) that particular event has had to be put on the back burner. I would have loved to do it, and would like to do it in the future - and perhaps do the whole event - but it looks like it's not meant to be this year. Unless some kind soul out there feels like helping me out with the practicalities, in which case, drop me an email!

However, there's now a new event in mind, which actually should end up being harder work for me - and make me have to face several fears! No more on it just yet, but as soon as I've got confirmed team members, and dates, I'll be putting up a sponsorship page, with the whole story. Keep looking out for it!

Reason 2 - Ginger Vieira and I are working on a project. Pretty hush-hush right now, but it WILL happen. If you don't know Ginger, do go check out her site. She's really awesome, and I'm having a lot of fun getting to know her. She's also an record holding powerlifter, and bench press champion. Hopefully she'll bear with me whilst I work up from wussy weights.

So what's my workout plan? Well, I'm still putting it together, but I'm having some help from the Wii Fit, and have put together a 20 minute yoga and muscle exercise plan, which I'm hoping to do before work every morning (giving me further motivation to GET UP), as well as reps with these 5lb weights. I'm looking to do four sets of ten reps, and work up from there.

What else? Well, sadly Dancesport has broken up for the summer, as far as I can tell. Silly university terms. So to fill the gap, I'm visiting a climbing wall, and I'm going to be taking up running.

You probably have no idea how much actually saying that fills me with dread. I hate running, I really, really do. I can sprint OK, but sustained distances? Let's just say that one of my proudest moments running was putting on a sprint at the last minute doing cross country at school, which meant that I came second from last in my year group as opposed to last.

So why am I doing it? Well, I want to try and raise as much money possible for JDRF. So I need to be able to do the event I'm planning on. I also need to be seen to be making a serious effort. I'm hoping that by tracking my progress with this, I'll be able to give you a good laugh - it's going to be thoroughly unglamorous, and maybe you'll take pity on me, and pass on the word of what I'm going to do.

Like I say, keep your eyes open. Probably next week I'll have details for you. And possibly a first vlog on the subject. I also need to get pre-exercise levels right. First 'training hypo' happened today.

We're off to a good start.

Shunk! Chu-chuck! Ti-di-dit!

Name those noises? Can't? OK, fair enough. I can though. 

1) Lanceting device firing

2) Pulling back the lanceting device to fire

3) Demipen injecting

All very familiar sounds to me now. So it turns out you can hear diabetes. Who knew? I certainly didn't, until the thought occurred to me when my 'Lantus Alarm' went off on my phone nearly an hour ago. 23:00, every night since I started using Lantus. I think I need to get a better alarm noise, because that one really annoys me. I don't know if it's the noise itself, or the fact the noise is actually playing that annoys me. But I wonder if there is a 'remix' of every day diabetes sounds to be had?

Maybe this is because I've got myself in a musical mindset at the moment. I'm practising for an open mic night coming up soon (one of my first times playing the guitar in public!), but also, I came across a few rather hilarious bits and pieces today.

I know that I'm rather behind the times in coming across these, but they cracked me up all the same, and in case you're as behind as me, I suggest checking them out.

First up is the always great Weird Al Yankovic with a lovely little ditty about our favourite organ, the pancreas.

Second up is something that I discovered today, and wished I known about months ago. That would be Christiaan Van Vuuren, the Fully Sick Rapper. This guy is the business, and has a special place in my heart. I would love to see what would happen if you got him together with Flight of the Conchords, and Garfunkel & Oates. I have had his tunes in my head all day. I wish I had just 1% of this guy's creativity :D

Like many others at this time of the year, I'm going to be offline for a week next month. Sadly, not on my own holidays though. Every year, my work packs up the entire office for a week, and decamps to boarding schools in North Yorkshire, for the annual Riding Lights Summer Theatre School (still places available, by the way!). 

This means that I'll be working away from an internet connection - meaning no new posts from me for that time. So I'm looking for your help, DOC!

I need guest posters for 24th - 31st July. I don't have any particular theme in mind, but if you're interested in filling in for me for a day, please do get in touch. Leave a comment, or drop me an email, and we can sort something out.  Looking forward to hearing from you!

We humans are an interesting bunch, I'm sure you'll agree. We do all sorts of strange an bizarre things. One thing we do is find personality in the most every day of things. I mean, have you seen Happy Chair Is Happy, as a prime example? 

So it's no surprise that you constantly come across people in the DOC giving personalities to things - D as a whole, pumps have names, so do lows, highs, CGMS and meters. I haven't got to the stage of naming things myself (apart from numberwang, which is pure quality, obviously)

I love that we do this. It takes something that can be so sterile, and gives it character. It's all about playing games with our imaginations. Stops us from growing too old, or going too crazy. I guess as well, it stops the gadgetry that we use day to day from being too imposing and 'scary'.

Now I'm wondering about the names of everyone's kit, and all their characters. Anyone up for a 'parade'? I'll bring the mardi gras beads!

Over the last few days, I've had some issues of serious failure cross my path. Some of them got me so riled up that I feel I need to share them. 

First up, the rather wonderful Kelly over at Diabetesaliciousness™ came across something really rather rage inducing. 

Oh, it's so easy to think that you've hit your stride. That you're in the swing of things. You get into a routine, and certain things just become habit.

After those things become habit, the,...n you start branching out and experimenting a bit. So it's always more than slightly annoying when you realise that something you thought you'd totally got to grips with knocks you on your arse.

I'd got to grips with splitting doses, or so I thought, at any rate. Tonight though, I found myself so preoccupied with trying to work out the right amount of NR to cover my meal (which required a split dose), that I just injected it all at once, feeling proud that I'd worked out the amount correctly.

It took me a few seconds before I my heart sink, and I shouted out something a bit rude. Still not all second nature then, it appears!

Something about weekends, and not wearing my watch throws my internal clock all off. Which means sometimes I end up eating later than I plan to, because I just plain old lose track of the time. 

I found myself having some strange old thoughts earlier. I was sat in my bedroom doing a sudoku puzzle, and I had a shining moment of well...weirdness, I suppose. I realised that I had done something that I believed no-one had ever done before. I had worked out the genders of all the numbers! Genius! So 9 was female, 8 was male, 7 female, 6 male, but it doesn't just carry on in sequence... Looking at the clock. Oh, it's 21:00. That's later than I thought, and thinking about it, isn't thinking about what gender all the numbers in sudoku are just a bit strange if you stop and consider it a bit more?

Probably a good idea to get something to eat, all things considered.

Today has been difficult. I ended up having one of those hypos that isn't even that low, but ends up knocking you for six. Felt so grotty all day, and then ended up in double figures. Just lovely.

As I mentioned yesterday, I had a black tie drinks thing for a friend's birthday this evening. At about 18:00, I wasn't entirely convinced that I would be able to go. I'd been feeling totally shaky, sweating loads, and just couldn't seem to process things right. To be honest, I felt utterly rubbish. Yet I didn't want to let this win.

What I wasn't sure about though, was that if I went out for drinks, still feeling rough, would I then feel even worse for the whole weekend? Not a definite outcome, to be sure, but certainly a possibility. I wasn't willing to sacrifice my weekend for it, but I wanted to go.

I did end up going, and thankfully I seemed to level out and I started feeling OK. I think I might have been lucky though. It felt like it so easily have gone the other way.

Not being a 'girly' girl, as I've mentioned before, you might be a bit surprised to know that I like to dress up as much as the next person. I'm rather pleased that I've got a friend's birthday drinks tomorrow night, and he's said it's black tie. 

I don't tend to spend much money on clothes, and even on smart dresses, but I do have a rather nice handful of dresses for smart occasions. 

This might be the post that makes a few people hate me - and trust me, I'm not trying to make this an 'oh poor me, my diamond shoes are too tight' type post. The thing is that, pre diagnosis, I lost quite a bit of weight. I know this isn't unheard of, but I've not put any of it back on, and I've actually lost more. I'm really happy about this of course, but the problem I've got is that an awful lot of my clothes actually don't fit me any more.

I tried on several of my nice dresses to decide what to wear, and most of them are going to need some serious alterations before they'll be suitable to wear again. The two that I tried on that still looked ok were, amusingly enough, the ones that had already been altered, since I've worn them more recently.

I just struggle to bring myself to spend money on clothes, when I have decent ones! The fact that they don't fit me seems beside the point. I'm just a real tightwad when it comes to money!

I had the day off work today, in order to go to what I believed to be a 'user involvement' day, run by Diabetes UK. As it was being held pretty much opposite where I work, I figured it couldn't hurt to go along. It'd be a good chance to network, perhaps promote DiDkA, and promote, and perhaps recruit a few people for Circle D North Yorkshire. 

Did you ever go to a party where you turned up dressed in something vastly inappropriate? I felt a little but like I'd turned up to a black tie event dressed in fancy dress - perhaps dressed like a bear.

Whilst everyone was really lovely and welcoming (and the DUK staff seemingly thrilled to see someone under thirty), it became quite clear that the event had a) been slightly misrepresented, and b) I may also have got slightly the wrong end of the stick about the whole thing. The day was about 'Service User Reps', and getting feedback. Do you know what one is? I most certainly didn't.

That's not to say that the day wasn't interesting, because it was. I never knew that the NHS had a constitution, for one thing! I don't know if I would become a Service User Rep - I get the impression that it may well be a time heavy commitment, and especially closer to the autumn, when my Master's course starts, my time is somewhat of a premium. But like I say, I didn't know there was an NHS constitution, and that it turns out that they're legally obliged to listen to us. All interesting stuff. I did also have an interesting chat with someone from the DUK head office!

Maybe I'll just leave my bear costume at home next time!