Just over half way through the Australasian Diabetes Congress and after a massive few days, I’ve lost my voice, my way and, my ability to form coherent thoughts. Thank goodness for links and stuff.

Grumps Down Under

Before the Austalasian Diabetes Congress (ADC) even kicked off, our skies darkened, a final Winter cold-blast hit the east coast of Australia and The Grumpy Pumper arrived. Oh, and Melbourne lost our World’s Most Liveable City crown the day Grumps arrived in my hometown. I’m not necessarily saying these things are connected, but that’s a lot of coincidences…

Anyway, Grumps and I spent the next few days drinking Melbourne coffee and tackling the issue of language and diabetes, and Grumps spoke about his #TalkAboutComplications work. The ACBRD team has written about his visit last week here.

Coffee. Because: coffee.

Once Melbourne had enough of Grumps, we headed to  Sydney to do more work, including visiting the offices of Life for a Child and catching up with some of the team there.

#OZDSMS

After arriving in Adelaide, it was straight to the conference centre for the first gathering of Aussie diabetes advocates and bloggers for Ascensia Diabetes Care’s Social Media Summit.

Grumps was the special guest and as well as speaking about diabetes complications, he and I led a discussion about decision making in diabetes technology.

You can see what all the chatter was about by checking out the #OzDSMS tag on Twitter, (there was a lot of discussion!), and I’ll be writing more about it in coming days.

Hard at it!

DIYAPS at ADC

The next day, ADC kicked off with a symposium on the Brave New World of Diabetes Technology. Three early Aussie loopers – Cheryl Steele, David Burren and me – took to the stage and you can watch all our talks here:

New DIY Diabetes Technologies Position Statement at ADC

And if you make it all the way to the end (the symposium went for 2 hours all up), you’ll see Diabetes Australia CEO, Greg Johnson, launching Diabetes Australia’s new position statement about Do It Yourself Diabetes Technologies. I am so proud of this world first position statement, something that all diabetes stakeholders from all over the globe have been crying out for. (A reminder to anyone asking ‘Why don’t we have one of those?’: please don’t reinvent the rule. Adapt and use this for your jurisdiction and get it out there to start the conversation.

(Click link to go to position statement)

PWD on stage at ADC

Later in the day, the stage in Riverview 7, I was pleased to stand on a stage crowded with some wonderful diabetes advocates for an ADC first – a symposium on Co-design. More about this another time, but some familiar Aussie advocates shared their work which has really advanced the role of people with diabetes in the development and delivery of diabetes services, activities and resources. I was so pleased to be able to show the new Mytonomy ‘Changing the Conversation’ video as an excellent example of co-design.

Melinda Seed and Frank Sita at the co-design symposium

Sexy new pump hits Australia

And rounding out day one was the official launch of the Tandem t:slim pump which is making its way to our shores next month. This is a sexy, sexy little pump and I know there are going to be a lot of people very excited about it! (The pump is being distributed by AMSL Diabetes in Australia, so keep an eye on their website for more details.)

PWD at ADC

Pleasingly, there has been a presence of people with diabetes at ADC. Probably this is most visible when reading social media updates from the #DAPeoplesVoices. David Burren, Melinda Seed and Frank Sita have been invited by Diabetes Australia to provide updates and commentary of the Congress. They are tweeting machines and have been covering sessions, live-tweeting throughout. But that’s not all! Ashley Ng facilitated a Twitter workshop, encouraging HCPs at the event to get on Twitter and share what they were learning. Kim Henshaw is here from Diabetes Victoria; Tanya Ilkew from Diabetes Australia is also here. Grumps is here. And I’ve been doing what I can in between presenting and meetings.

I crashed last night with my voice gone, and fell asleep wrapped in the memory of a brilliant few days of impactful and meaningful advocacy efforts. There’s so much more to do. But these sorts of events, and opportunities to spend time with other people with diabetes who are certainly on the same wavelength and have the same commitment to bringing in the voice of PWD to all discussions, certainly help to advance our cause.

And one more thing

It looks like it’s that time again, Australia…

Disclosures

I was involved in the planning for the Ascensia Diabetes Care Social Media Summit and attended and spoke at the events Grumps attended. I did not receive any payment from Ascensia for this involvement or for attending the Summit. They did provide lunch and dinner, and gave me a free Contour Next One blood glucose meter. And an almost endless supply of coffee. Ascensia has not asked me to write about any of the work I’ve done with them. But I will, because I like to share and I know there are people who are desperate to know what was going on while Grumps was here!

Grumps was here as a guest of Ascensia Diabetes Care, who brought him to Australia to be the keynote speaker at the Ascensia Australia Diabetes Social Media Summit and to speak at other events about his #TalkAboutComplications initiative.