Having lived with diabetes for almost 40 years, I’ve been able to build a mental resilience to treating this condition as the only way I know how to live. The biggest mental frustration often lies with the general lack of common knowledge that the general public knows about Type 1 Diabetes, and how ‘if I adapted my lifestyle’ I’d be ok, linking it to feeling it’s the same as Type 2 Diabetes as a condition. I’ve therefore adapted an acceptance of this to try and give T1D a better exposure and understanding to those that don’t know.

Despite living with T1D for several decades, there are times that the condition decides to have a mind of its own, despite what you believe to have done to have a great control over it. I’ve learnt to accept that “it’s just a day, today, and that I can manage this condition and get back on track tomorrow”. I try and maintain quite a rigid management and mentally convicted to maintain a HbA1C consistently around 6.0, but when I have high days or my blood sugars don’t correlate with what I’ve eaten or the way I feel I’ve exercised, I’m much more accepting to this, thanks to the years of conditioning to deal with it. I have a very supportive wife and family and that helps.

I often will use the accessible online information from around the world to look at other experiences, and I’m an avid follower of the Novo Nordisk Cycling team. As avid cyclists, they are an inspirational team that shows that as a T1D, nothing is impossible to physically achieve.