The Next Thriveabetes

Can you believe that it's been a month since we were all together in Naas, Co. Kildare at Thriveabetes 2016? Myself and they team are well recovered at this stage and have made some decisions for the next Thriveabetes that we would like to share with you.  

DATE - Spring 2018 We have decided that the next Thriveabetes will actually be a 2018 event. And we are looking for a date in February or early March. We are excited about having a spring event.

VENUE As you can imagine, it's takes a lot of time an effort to find suitable, large enough venues and neither myself, Rebecca or Christine we're ready to launch into that straight away. And this is what influenced us to wait until Spring 2018. We have a lot of the research done already and we will be stay in the major motorway areas of the east. We hope to have this all in the bag by this coming March/April.

COST Our fantastic event is a costly affair, even though all of the organisers volunteer their time and services for free and we have subsidies from the exhibition, sponsors and fundraising, we still end up with a shortfall of approximately 4,000. So, we have had to review our ticket price structure for 2018. We will still work very hard to keep it affordable but there will be a major price increase for the child tickets and a small increase on the adult tickets. If might soften this blow knowing that we will invest more of the ticket price into the lunch we provide.

FUNDING & SPONSORS

We are currently looking for donations of raffle prizes for our fundraising raffle next September. We hope that this will supplement some of the cost of Thriveabetes 2018 and keep the cost to our attendees down.

SPEAKERS AND TOPICS The survey we emailed to you provide so many ideas for future speakers and new topics. We will be hoping to have speakers from 2015 and 2016 return. And we have a lot of interest from our Irish role models too.

We feel that we learned a lot about layout and facilities by making a few oversights this year and those are the best lessons to learn. We will take these lessons and use them to promise to deliver an even better event again in 2018.

In the meantime, here are couple of photos from Naas to relive the moments.

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Type 1 Diabetes isn't Easy

This weeks post is from Kieran Flanagan who I met at Thriveabetes 2015, I didn't know him then, when he leaned over and jokingly told me not to get a swelled head. :-O It was only in the weeks after when he contacted me about how to set up a type 1 diabetes support group in Galway for adults, that I came to know him a little. Kieran's guest post is about not ignoring when type 1 diabetes becomes more of a struggle, that it's ok to not feel ok but that feeling not ok should only be temporary.

Kieran has lived with type 1 diabetes for 21 years, he's just two years younger that me - diabetes years that is. Today though, Kieran is a member of our diabetes online community who needs it more than ever to keep him on his journey with diabetes. And we know that he is not alone. Out of the blue Kieran emailed these words to me and I felt they needed to be shared. We tend to over accentuate the fact that diabetes doesn't stop us from doing anything but the truth is, sometimes it does put a spanner in the works and talking about it is always good.

So in Kieran's words, here is his story;

OK here goes nothing.

I took part in a small group discussion at Thriveabetes 2016 about living with diabetes complications and I’ve decided to write about what I’ve been going through these last few years in my life with type 1 diabetes.

I’m not going to start from the beginning as I’m sure being diagnosed was troublesome for us all. My real trouble started after my twins were born three years ago. Everything just got too much for me; trying to balance work, sleep, diabetes and doing my bit around the house. I work long hours; 14 hour days but I’m off for 3 days a week, so just managing my diabetes with work was tough alone. But just after the babies came along I hit a wall in my life and I didn’t think I was any good to anyone. I was deeply depressed.

It took me a long time to understand what was wrong with me and it didn’t make any sense until one visit to the clinic and where my consultant and his words changed a lot of things for me. His words were “How are you feeling and don’t say fine?” That was all it took, I spilled the whole lot out; from feeling crap one day to feeling on top of the world the next. I believe only for my consultant and my family, I wouldn’t be here at all today.

I went to counselling for 18 months and got the help I needed and learned so much about myself and others around me. My counsellor didn't know anything about type 1 diabetes but they didn't need to. Diabetes was just the sideshow of what was really going on but that's what was suffering the most. That was about two years ago. And everything seemed to be back on track. But then, just when all seemed rosy, I was hit again, this time with a diabetes complication. This time I think it’s bigger.

My kidneys are failing.

I was told 6 months ago that I’m heading for a transplant in 2 or 3 years but, if I’m honest, I think I’m looking at one a little bit sooner. And my a:c ratio is one point away from putting me one the transplant list. The irony is that my HbA1c has shown a sharp drop in last 6 months. After I changed my lifestyle completely to try lengthen the time to a transplant. But it seems my a:c is doing the opposite.

I will never know if those couple of years where I was struggling to manage my diabetes are the cause of my kidney failure but my gut tells me that that period wasn't long enough to do all the damage it has done. It doesn't make sense how I got here so fast.

I know I’ve a huge battle on my hands in the coming years. . I don’t know if this will make sense to any of you but if I can help one person out who is like me, who feels like they are the only one living with diabetes complications feel less alone then I will tell all. I hope I can. I have two messages for everyone living with diabetes. If diabetes gets you down, and it probably will at some point, Please talk to someone! Or if you’re pissed off with it, just don’t ignore it!. It doesn’t go away. And talking about it can only help. If that has to be a counsellor then remember that they are people just like us, except they don't judge and they are better equipped to say the right thing.

Thank you Kieran for your courage. And remember if you are struggling with your diabetes or anything - find someone to talk to.

Thanks from Insulin for Life

Thriveabetes 2016 facilitated a collection of unneeded, unused diabetes supplies and insulin to send to Insulin for Life/InDependent Diabetes Trust. This was all organised by a member of the Diabetes Community and mother of a child with type 1 diabetes, Sarah MacCann from Dublin. There was an amazing response! I'll let Sarah tell you all about it.

Thank You from Insulin for Life and Sarah MacCann.

It's taken a little while but I've finally sorted through and sent off all the spare insulin and diabetes supplies so generously donated by delegates at this years’ Thriveabetes conference. And what a result! - 10 vials of insulin, 21 pre-fill cartridges and 31 pre-filled insulin pens - 30+ packets of 10 insulin syringes - 8 full boxes of insulin pen needles - 8 full boxes of lancets - 15+ full boxes/containers of glucose test strips - 12 blood glucose monitors - As well as lancing devices, i-ports, sterile wipes, insulin pens and more.

All new, all unused, all going to save lives and enable people living with diabetes in the developing world to thrive in their own communities.

In all, five boxes were sent off to the InDependent Diabetes Trust, who are Insulin for Life's local partner in the UK. We don't yet have a local partner here in Ireland, but we are working on it. IDDT will send all the donated supplies to local projects in the developing world. Last year alone, they sent 110 parcels of donated supplies including £32,000 worth of in-date insulin to diabetes clinics in Africa. You can read more about it here.

So I just wanted to say thank you so much for bringing along all your unwanted supplies for such a great cause. And thanks for coming to talk to us at our little stand in the exhibitor’s area. It's great to get a chance to spread the word that we can do something really positive with our unwanted diabetes supplies.

You can send your unwanted supplies directly to the IDDT all year round, at: Insulin for Life InDependent Diabetes Trust PO Box 294 Northampton NN1 4XS U.K.

They accept: - Unopened, in-date insulin with at least 3 months until expiry date - Unused insulin pens - Unopened packs of syringes & pen needles - Unused lancets and unopened lancing devices - Unopened glucose test strips - Unused blood glucose monitors

Make sure everything you send is unused and in-date, ideally in its original packaging. And don't forget to say that you heard about them at Thriveabetes!

Thanks again for all your support again and looking forward to meeting you again next year.

Sarah email: i4eireland@gmail.com