On Wednesday 22 June in Leinster House, Diabetes Ireland is briefing TDs and Senators on current diabetes services and what future services are required to support the diabetes community nationally in the coming years. Myself, Rebecca Flanagan, Davina Lyon & Elizabeth Murphy have been invited to attend this event with both Rebecca, a parent of a child with type 1 diabetes, & Davina, an adult with type 1 diabetes, making personal statements. Next week I hope to fill you all in on how it went.

If you are reading this post early on the 21st and have a couple of minutes we would very much appreciated it if you would email your local TDs and ask them to represent you or your family member at this briefing. You can find email addresses for all of them here; Who is my TD?

Speakers will include Dr Nuala Murphy, Consultant Paediatric Endocrinologist and National Clinical Lead in Paediatric Diabetes, Dr Ronan Canavan, Consultant Endocrinologist, National Clinical Lead in Adult Diabetes and our four patient representatives.

On a completely different note - We want to hear your stories!

Over a number of months we have been featuring your diabetes stories. And you have all been fantastic! We would love to hear from more of you. Are you a diabetes veteran but new to the Irish Diabetes Online Community? Have you raised a child with diabetes who is now an adult? Are you a young adult still getting use to doing it without your parents? Basically, if you have something you want to say or a story to tell - we want to hear it.

This is the list of people we have featured over the last couple of years;

• Diabetes Families Trip to Trabolgan by Roisin Keegan Published 2016/05/31
• A Newly Diagnosed Family’s story Published 2016/05/23
• 17 and Type 1 Diabetes by Abbie O’Sullivan Published 2016/05/16
• The O’Sullivan D-Mum by Julie O’Sullivan Published 2016/04/25
• Tour de Type 1 Diabetes! By James O’Reilly Published 2016/04/18
• Type 1 Diabetes; A Rollercoaster of Emotions by Olivia Pyne Published 2016/04/12
• Meet Tracy Fahey from Limerick Published 2016/03/22
• Meet Shane O’Donnell, Young Leader in Diabetes Published 2016/03/08
• Rosemary’s Story; 30 years Pumping Published 2016/01/26
• Rebecca Flanagan; Thriveabetes had the potential to nourish Published 2015/02/25
• Christine Meehan; Thriveabetes is a first of it's kind event Published 2015/02/19
• Davina Lyon; Thriveabetes; A Fantastic Opportunity Published 2015/02/12

Email me at Grainne@thriveabetes.ie