Diabetes is an invisible illness. Except, of course, it’s not.

If you look – carefully – around our home you will notice diabetes is everywhere. 

Open the fridge and you will see insulin vials and the paper prescriptions for next time I am running low, housed in a blue box on the lowest shelf. 

The pantry is stacked with juice boxes, fruit pastilles and other easy to digest sources of glucose. 

Tell-tale signs on my bedside table include a jar of jellybeans, a half empty glass of orange juice and a BGL meter.

In the bathroom is the cannula I pulled out this morning before I stepped into the shower – so that I could enjoy the water on my body with one less piece of equipment taped to my skin. 

My bag is a veritable treasure trove – if the treasure you seek is quick-acting glucose, old blood glucose monitoring strips and diabetes supplies…

In the bedroom there are the empty packages from pump lines and cartridges and CGM sensors, waiting to be disposed of appropriately. 

A beautiful old cupboard housed in the corner of that same room look as though it should hold family heirlooms, but instead is dedicated to housing neatly stacked diabetes supplies.

In my study, on the bookshelf, you will see shelves dedicated to diabetes-related titles: books by friends and colleagues about how to live well with diabetes. 

On my desk is a half-empty bottle of glucose tabs and glucose tab dust liberally sprinkled around. 

My phone alarms and warns throughout the day, the volume turned low so as not to startle me while on a Zoom call.

There are pathology slips on the fridge, magnets holding them in place, reminding me to make time to get those checks done. 

There is a pattern of red dots on the bed linen from the ‘splurter’ last night when I calibrated my CGM. Running late this morning I didn’t have time to change the sheets. 

On the kitchen bench, where items for recycling sit before being taken to the bin, you’ll frequently see one, two, three empty juice boxes.

Tied around the rose bushes in the front garden you’ll find used pump lines, holding the branches to the fence.

On the fridge are messages and cards and silly notes from DOC friends from nearby and faraway, reminding me that I have support around the globe.

And everywhere, but everywhere, you’ll see an odd BGL strips, glittering (littering) the ground. 

Diabetes is invisible until you look for it. And when you do – and when you see it – you realise that diabetes lives here.