Our kid has always enjoyed drawing. I’m someone who struggles to draw a stick figure, so I am frequently impressed by her ability to sketch and paint things that are actually quite good, and I’m able to easily identify.

The other day, I was tidying up the kitchen table when I came across one of her sketches. I picked it up and looked at it. ‘This is gorgeous, darling,’ I said to her as she sat at the table doing her homework. And then I stopped. ‘Wait…why are you drawing a woman pole dancing?’

Exhibit A

She looked at me with that expression that only a teenager-in-training can, and then started laughing. ‘Mum!’ She exclaimed, taking the drawing from my hands. She turned the paper ninety degrees, and held it up to me. ‘It’s a witch on a broomstick!’

Exhibit B

Ah, perspective!

On Friday last week, I spoke at the first Australasian Diabetes Advancements and Technologies Summit (#ADATS) in Sydney. My talk was ‘The consumer perspective on new technologies’. So, as usual, I crowd sourced some ideas from Facebook friends. I do this for two reasons… one: it gives me the opportunity to share the thoughts of other PWD so that my voice is not the only one heard. And two: I’m lazy.

I centred my talk around the love/hate relationship I have with diabetes technology and asked others to give me a couple of dot points on what they love, and what they don’t really love (or hate) about diabetes tech.

In many cases, the things people love are also the things they hate, and that makes so much sense to me!

Our perspective of our diabetes devices can change all the time. Some days, I am so appreciative for all the information my diabetes technology offers; other days I want to ignore it as it just makes me want to cry. Sometimes I love the devices and I can’t imagine being without them; other days I long for my body to be free of them. Some days, I love the alerts and alarms, and respond to them promptly; other days, the noise is unbearable and I switch off everything I can so I don’t need aural reminders of just how hopeless I am at diabetes.

My perspective can spin on a coin, and often it takes very little for me to move from loving every piece of technology to wanting to bin it all.

The point of my talk was not to bitch and moan about the technology I know I am so fortunate and privileged to be able to afford and use. It was to try to explain that the bells and whistles, and data and information can truly be wonderful. But our feelings about the tech will change (often several times in the space of a day) and this does affect how we feel about our diabetes.

Disclosures

My travel costs were covered by the National Association of Diabetes Centres, the organisers of ADATS. I was on the ADATS organising committee.