This blog is about the impact Type 1 Diabetes has had on my life over the years, and how I live with Diabetes now while trying to get better at managing it, trying to become a better competitive cyclist, live a balanced life and just function in life!

In 1990 at the age of 10, I was diagnosed as a Type 1 Diabetic.

Fast forward on from when I was diagnosed to now… I’m… sigh. I’m getting old… 38. So that makes it over 28 years that I’ve had Diabetes.

…Moving on…

As I mentioned above, Diabetes has had its impacts on my life. For example, I can no longer drive. From having not looked after my Diabetes when I was a lot younger, my eyes suffered and I had to have eye surgeries. This resulted in me losing too much peripheral vision for the transport authority to allow me to continue to drive. That’s never going to change as the retina that provides peripheral vision was cut away from my eyes. But I’ll talk about this and other issues in this blog.

As you may have realised by the title of this blog I’m a cyclist.

Not just someone who jumps on the bike to ride to work or down to the local shops. I’m a competitive cyclist. Having said that… I actually do ride to and from work, seeing as I’m not allowed to drive. But I regularly compete in road cycling and cross country mountain biking.

I’m an IT professional and this keeps me busy, making that work-life balance sometimes a struggle to keep on the even keel. I do a bit of photography in my spare time. Both of these things hint at the fact that I like technology and gadgets. This will become more apparent in this blog 🙂

So why am I writing this blog? Well, for a number of reasons…

Diabetes is hard. It’s like a job and doesn’t let up. Can I help others with Type 1 Diabetes?

Sometimes seeing how other people do things can help with things that are hard. So this blog is going to include posts of how I do things while having Type 1 Diabetes. There will be a big focus on cycling, but I’ll also cover other things that I get up to and how my Diabetes has an impact.

But what I do want to cover is that for some people there could easily be a stigma around being physically active when having Type 1 Diabetes. Sometimes I even think “nah…. that’d be too hard seeing as I have Type 1 Diabetes.”

But the thing is, there are people out there who do NOT let Type 1 Diabetes stop them from being extremely physically active.

For instance, there is a professional cycling team, Team Novo Nordisk, the roster of which is made up SOLELY of professional cyclists who have Type 1 Diabetes. In regards to their Diabetes… These guys? They. Have. Their. Shit. Sorted!

If they can handle the levels of physical exertion required to race bicycles against other cyclists who do not have Type 1 Diabetes, what is stopping others with Type 1 Diabetes from being physically active too?

Now, I’m not a professional cyclist. Hell, I’m not even an elite cyclist. I’m literally middle of the pack when it comes to racing. But… I want to get better. And I know I can. But it’ll require me working on my Diabetes. And some training will probably (definitely!) be required. But I’m going to give it a crack. And that, along with other topics, is what I’ll be talking about here.

I’m hoping that other people with Type 1 Diabetes who might be struggling with exercise, or might even be a little anxious about becoming more physically active, might find this blog useful. But hey… If you’re already physically active, or you don’t even have Type 1 Diabetes, you might find this blog interesting all the same!

So hopefully I might provide some inspiration… I might become an enabler. Both?

Raise awareness and funds?

I think this blog could also aid in raising awareness of Type 1 Diabetes and what those of us with Type 1 Diabetes go through while trying to live something that might resemble a normal life.

I do understand that just posting on this blog might not be enough to achieve this. I’ll certainly be looking for ways in which I can further raise awareness of Type 1 Diabetes.

Alongside raising awareness, I will be looking into ideas to raise funds. At the time of writing this, I have some ideas, but none of them will happen overnight. I will update on this topic and which organisation I will donate any raised funds to.

Personal record

If nothing else, this will be a personal record that I may be able to use to continue improving my Diabetes. I’ll be able to learn from the mistakes and successes that I record here. Both will be valuable. Writing about successes and failures here will be a valuable record of how I can improve my Diabetes, my fitness and cycling and other parts of my life.

As part of this I intend to try new things and learn from doing so. This could also work out to be interactive with readers of the blog who may have done the same things.

Disclaimer…

I know this concept of mine is nothing new. There are definitely other sites out there that cover the same topics regarding Type 1 Diabetes that will be covered on this site.

But I believe that every person who has Type 1 Diabetes goes through it in their own way. This blog will be about how I deal with Type 1 Diabetes and the impacts it has on my life.