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With restrictions starting to ease – albeit, and thankfully, slowly – how is everyone feeling? I know that I’m not all that sure I’m ready…
Earlier in the week, I woke to a heap of messages highlighting an incident in the UK where a female MP had been told to watch her tone by a male MP. I muttered something about strident women and moved on. ‘Not my monkeys, not my circus’ has become a useful mantra in the time of COVID-19!
Then, later on the same day, I was pointed in the direction of a wonderful (???) social experiment where a bloke on Twitter had changed his avatar to that of a woman (or rather, as he said, a ‘lady avatar’) and could confidently report back to the world that he was treated very differently, and dealt with jerks, annoyances and microaggressions. And that he received dick picks, which he found violating.
I sighed. ‘Another fucking monkey’, I thought. But this is a circus of which I am very much a part!
Despite daily, actually, hourly if not more frequent, comments on Twitter where women emphasise just how shoddily we get treated by men, it takes a man to pretend for a short period to be a woman to prove (to him, and apparently others) that what we are saying is true.
My response to his experiment was this:
Of course, this little ‘investigation’ (and I use that term loosely) made me immediately think of all the times HCPs have participated in ridiculous simulations of what it is like to be a ‘patient’ so that they can truly understand how difficult it can be, instead of just simply listening to what we say about it. You don’t need to sit in a hypo simulator to appreciate that hypos suck. Or to wear an insulin pump for a few days to know they can be a pain in the arse to wear.
No, you just need to listen to people with diabetes. We can tell you how much hypos suck in a million different ways, using words, images, or interpretive dance. There are poems about it. There are TED talks. There are pages and pages and pages written about it. You can check out all those things. Or just us ask! And then listen.
And also, what gets missed from these short-term experiments is that they are so damn superficial. They barely scratch the surface of what they are pretending to be. The bloke on Twitter had a couple of days of tweets coming his way that he found annoying. But he didn’t feel the threat or fear that women feel when we are being intimidated online. And at the end of his little game, he could go back to being himself. The same goes for anyone pretending to ‘do diabetes’ for a minute of two.
To our social researcher (another term I am using loosely) on Twitter: next time, just listen and believe the women who are living, and talking about this crap every single day. I’d urge HCPs to do the same thing when it comes to listening and believing the people they are working to help.
Oh, and to the tosser who tone policed his colleague: just don’t do that. Ever.
I wrote this piece six years ago today when one of the most well-known, and one of my whole family’s long-time favourites – turned 28. Today, Marios is still going strong and has hit thirty-four years of operation. We are still frequent visitors to this cafe. It has become our kid’s choice for weekend brunch – she and I have a standing date their every second Saturday when Aaron is at a rehearsal. And at least one weekend day will see the three of us eating together. And drinking coffee. Yes, Marios is where my kid together with one of the cafe’s namesakes, ganged up on me and broke my ‘no coffee until you are eighteen’ rule, and started drinking coffee when she was just a teenager.
Marios at home.
During this time of COVID-19 we have been desperately missing Marios. Even though it’s only ten minutes from where we live, it’s outside the zone of where we have comfortably been travelling for our daily caffeine hits. But last weekend, we decided we needed a meal of pasta from there – the ultimate in comfort food – so called in an order and went to pick it up. I teared up as I walked into the cafe and was greeted by the gorgeous staff. It had been six weeks since I had last walked in that door and I can’t remember another time (unless travelling) where I have gone that long without paying them a visit.
As have many other small business, Marios has adapted to the new rules about dining. Takeaway and delivery is available, and they have turned the front of the store into a provedore with tables of dried and fresh (made in house) pasta, sauces, jams, coffee and fresh fruit and veggies. I loaded up a bag with the pantry staples as I chatted with the staff waiting for my pasta to be ready.
Marios will always – always – have a special place in our heart. And will be back as soon as this is over, making up for lost time. But until then, we’ll get takeaway and support them as we can. I’m sharing this post today (with a couple of edits) because it feels the only thing to do.
With one of the Marios a couple of weeks ago when I picked up dinner.
Today, my all-time favourite café turns 28 34 years old. Marios café (named for its two owners, Mario Maccarone and Mario De Pasquale, hence no apostrophe) is celebrating its birthday and remains the ultimate in Melbourne café culture. It’s unapologetic (still doesn’t serve skim milk, although did succumb a couple of years ago and started to offer soy) and reliable (never had a bad coffee!).
I’ve been going to Marios for pretty much all of its 28 34 years – first with my parents and then with friends. Once I left school, meeting up with people at Marios was the epitome of cool! Great jazz on the stereo, a gorgeous changing art display showcasing local talent, and the best coffee in Melbourne. Plus tablecloths on the tables, smartly dressed waiters and breakfast served all day. There have been many times that I’ve ordered scrambled eggs or a blueberry bagel at 10pm!
Back in my uni days, it was the location for many first dates and I could always tell if there would be a second date by whether or not the guy knew of Marios when I suggested we meet there. Aaron and I had our first date there, eating cheesecake late at night after seeing a movie. He knew about Marios; there was a second date! In any relationship break up in the division of cafes and pubs and places we’d hung out, I always got Marios!
Marios is where I take overseas friends when I want them to have a truly Melbourne café experience. DOC friends from home and abroad have been taken there and just a couple months ago, a group of us got together to catch up. It’s where I meet up with friends who have moved overseas when they come home for a visit. My beautiful friend Shannon who moved from Melbourne to Hong Kong and then the UK over 15 years ago and I have a standing date any time she’s in town so she can get a fix of Marios lasagne! Recently, I caught up with a long-lost friend and there was no doubt about where we would meet.
There have been many memorable visits to Marios including the night before my daughter was born, where I checked my watch every ten minutes, counting down until the time I would meet her. The day we brought her home from hospital, we took a pit stop to Marios to show her off to the waiters and introduce her to the place she would be spending a lot of time.
I’ve laughed, cried, and had some of the most serious conversations of my life in Marios. I’ve said goodbye to friends and welcomed them back into my life. I’ve met up with people for difficult, heartbreaking chats because it’s always felt safe.
I can still remember my first trip to Marios after I was diagnosed with diabetes. It was only a week or two later and it was the first time I was eating out. It was where I did my first ‘public injection’ and I can remember my heart racing as I pulled my insulin pen out of my bag and tried to jab my stomach secretly. I was sure everyone was watching me, judging me, waiting to jump on me and tell me to put it away. No one noticed and if they did, said nothing. I searched the menu for food that the ridiculously old-school dietitian I had seen would approve of and I wondered if it would be okay for me have chocolate sprinkled on top of my cappuccino. I fought back tears as I asked the waiter for sugar substitute and then explained why I was asking. My coffee was on the house that day.
Now, I don’t hide away my BGL checks or pulling my pump out from under my clothes when I am out, and it was at Marios that I realised that I had nothing to be ashamed about when it came to ‘public displays of diabetes’. Marios normalised eating out with diabetes – the new reality of my life.
I felt safe there. I knew I would not be questioned. I knew that I would still be the old me there and Marios would never change. It felt like it always did. It felt like home.
Dear COVID-19,
Well, aren’t you just the flavour of the month?
It’s been interesting to see some other health issue get all the attention for a bit. Suddenly the conspiracy theorists and alternative medicine wellness gurus are focused on you and that’s meant that some of the pressure has been taken off me. I don’t think I’ve heard one ‘<insert weird root vegetable> cures diabetes’ message in weeks. I’m almost missing it.
I’ve been watching as the usual suspects come out in force, touting all sorts of miracle cures to send you on your way. I’ve rolled my eyes as a veritable feast of different foods, drugs, sunshine and blowing hot air in your face have been offered up as THE cure. And lemon water. Because you know that cures everything, right? Oh, and perineum sunning. Yes, really. (You may not want to look that one up…)
But along with the shaking my head at these ideas, I’ve despaired as healthcare professionals, researchers and public health campaigners have been dragged away from their important and necessary work to have to respond to idiots like Pete Evans and some footballer’s wife and everyone’s Great Aunt Maude. And the US President.
So, who else has been hogging the spotlight during this time of isolation?
The tone deaf have been making a lot of noise, insisting that people embrace this new found simpler way of life, and start an organic no dig herb garden, salute the sun every morning (I think this is different to the perineum sunning, but I’m not sure), begin roasting coffee beans for a real authentic South American caffeine hit, make ricotta from scratch, and train for a marathon by running around your kitchen table, all while starting a cottage business making candles out of the wax collected from the bees you’re now keeping on the roof. This, of course, ignores the fact that most people are struggling to find basic food staples, or can’t afford them if they do find them because they’ve found their hours at work significantly cut. The idea of doing anything that involves getting off the couch is too much for lots of people. And the only reason anyone would be on their roof is because it’s the only place to get away from the family and the dog.
Really, it’s all very well to photograph yourself picking rosemary from the carefully cultivated hedge that surrounds the veggie patch on the perfectly lit balcony of your inner-city apartment, to throw over the home delivered, grass-fed, organic lamb you’ve been slow roasting all day as you’ve worked from your perfectly curated home office, complete with fresh flowers and candles burning. But to suggest that everyone do the same because, really, it’s fresh, quick and easy? Now might be a really good time to check that extreme privilege you have on show on your constantly updated grid.
And the anti-vaxxers have been getting their 15 minutes of fame again. They started by contradicting the stay home rules by suggesting they all hang out together in parks, with their kids. And then shouting ‘in the pockets of big pharma’ to any scientist offering decent data and evidence on how to stay safe. They’ve already started their usual bullshit about any potential future vaccine being made of mercury, asbestos, pig poo, the tears of dictators and waste from Chernobyl and how they’ll be avoiding getting the vaccine like the plague. (Which they won’t get anyway because their immune systems have been super-boosted by lemon water and holding measles parties.)
Sure, COVID-19, you may be new, but I’ve seen all this before. The cures, the anti-vaxxers, the Instagram influencers – they’ve been around for years. They’ve just turned their attention to you now. They’re probably grateful that you’ve given them some new material. I mean, how many photos can the influencer of the moment share of the latest green smoothie or teatox craze, promising that this is the way to stop post-meal insulin spikes (or something)? We were all getting a little tired of that garbage.
Enjoy your moment in the sun (again, I’m not talking perineum sunning), because eventually, there will be a vaccine. That’s right: dictators will have cried enough tears, or whatever the active ingredient will be, and your time will be over. But don’t worry. I’ll still be here, waiting for a Kardashian (or US President) to come up with some other harebrained idea about what can cure me.
Best,
Diabetes
Last Friday night, I sat around with three other women with type 1 diabetes and we had a chat. When I say ‘sat around’ I mean Zoomed, but other than the fact that we were seeing each other through computer screens, it could have been any other time I was meeting up with women with diabetes for a casual chat.
The reason for this gathering was so that I could be interviewed for a new Australian podcast. Mamabetes was launched just last week, and is a project by three amazing Aussie advocates, Ashleigh, Rachel and Carleigh, all who are living with type 1 diabetes.
I was a little surprised when they reached out to me. My kid is fifteen and my experience of pregnancy and diabetes is a little old now. But they wanted to speak with me about stigma and language, and how that can impact on all sorts of diabetes experiences – including pregnancy.
I’d never met any of the women before and other than a short conversation with Ashleigh a couple of days before, the first time we chatted was when Zoom brought their gorgeous faces and happy smiles into my study at home. I’d been sent a brief outline of what they hoped to get from our discussion and a few broad questions for me to consider before we got started. We were going to chat for about fifteen minutes and see where our conversation took us.
I’m sure that we could have stuck to that timeframe if we really wanted, and to the questions I’d been offered as a guide. But an hour later, we were still chatting, and we’d taken off on some wonderful tangents, as happens when people with shared interests and experiences come together.
The podcast episode with our chat dropped this morning and I’ve been listening to it in bits and pieces in between the Zoom existence so many of us seem to be living at the moment. We cover lots, so do have a listen! Click on the image below to go to the podcase, and the Mamabetes other socials are listed for you to follow along.
Asheigh, Rachel and Carleigh are creating something really important here, and providing women with diabetes a place to learn and connect – around an issue that is relevant and important to many. Thanks to these three dynamic women for doing this, and for inviting me to be a part of their second podcast episode.
Go follow…
I know that the last thing anyone needs right now is someone else writing about what they have been eating, cooking and baking during lockdown. I think that my Instagram feed is about 75% banana bread at the moment, which is of no interest to be as I don’t like bananas. About 20% is sourdough starters, because suddenly everyone is an artisanal baker, ready to throw down a challenge to the likes of Lionel Poilâne. (Poilâne died in the early 2000s, so probably won’t rise to the challenge. There’s a bread pun in there…)
So, I feel that this post about food really isn’t necessary, except that even when not in lockdown, I spend a lot of time focussing on food. I like to blame my Italian family for it, but I think it’s just that I love everything food has to offer. From planning, shopping, prepping, cooking, serving up and then eating, the whole process is one that I love.
And so, I’m sharing some of my most recent baking and cooking efforts, mostly because I am a lazy baker and cook. By that I mean that I look for the simplest of recipes that will yield the most impressively delicious results. This means that those who I share my food with think that I am far more expert that I really am. I’m not ready to correct those misconceptions yet.
Baking
My current baking output is out of control at the moment. In normal, non-pandemic times, I bake cookies and biscuits every Sunday, so the kid has something sweet to take in her lunchbox and share with friends. I post pics of the end product (and a timelapse cooking video) on my socials with the hashtag #AndOnSundaysWeBake. Occasionally, I may bake something another day during the week.
All bets are off in the time of COVID-19 and so I needed a new hashtag: #AndOnEveryFuckingDayWeBake is far more accurate in these extraordinary times. The neighbours have been getting deliveries on their doorsteps, and I’ve discovered small batch baking, or become super-efficient at halving recipes to make just enough for one morning tea, or after dinner treat.
I rarely follow recipes – I just make things up as I go along. But I’ve tried to find similar receipts along the way just in case you suddenly have a burning desire to get in the kitchen and create.
Amaretti
Literally a ten minute back up resulting in delicious and fancy biscuits. You can use any citrus or other flavouring. These ones were orange. Similar recipe can be found here.
Apple, cinnamon and walnut bread
Banana bread can go fuck itself, but give me a decent apple bread any time! Add cinnamon and you are halfway to curing your diabetes. And everyone knows that walnuts are a superfood (bullshit), so really, this loaf should be found in a fancy, overpriced health food café. Similar recipe can be found here.
Focaccia
I bake bread now. And this focaccia was sublime. I’ve made it a few times to serve with whatever soup I’ve had cooking on the stove all day. Similar recipe here.
Sparkly cupcakes
When your neighbours celebrate a special anniversary while in lockdown, it’s compulsory to make them cupcakes that sparkle in the sunlight. Nigella’s basic cupcake recipe never fails.
Brownies
And more from Nigella. Here, her emergency brownies can be knocked up, and out of the oven ready for you to eat in half an hour. Put the kettle on. Recipe here.
Cornflake biscuits
This is a pretty good pantry staple item recipe. All crunchy and crispy and downright delicious with an afternoon cuppa. Similar recipe here.
Anything citrus
If it’s got lemon, orange or lime in it, you can bet I want to make it.
I’m calling these biscotti all’arancia e cocciolato and they look rather impressive. But really, they’re just orange shortbread dipped in chocolate, but jeez they tasted great! Similar recipe here.
Did I mention I love lemon? This cake is a lemon loaf, with lemon syrup and then lemon drizzle because triple the lemon is always the best. Similar recipe here.
But possibly my favourite was this mandarin loaf which contains two whole mandarins thrown into the food processor for the most intense mandarin-y flavour and then more mandarin zest and juice in the icing. Similar recipe here (just replace the orange with mandarins).
Cooking
A combination of weather cooling down, the day getting darker earlier and the whole lockdown thing has meant that I’m looking for foods that are comforting, and take ages to cook, just sitting on the stove for hours for their flavours to develop.
Sauces
Last week’s Bolognese sauce cooked for over six hours and then was decanted into take away containers for the freezer, the neighbours and that night’s lasagne. Find whichever bolognese recipe works for you. Just don’t add zucchini.
And the end of Summer signalled the end of our basil plants, so I whizzed all that was left up and made pesto. Even with the warmer weather becoming a distant memory, the taste of summer will still get a few more outings with the little oil-topped jars of verdant pesto goodness waiting in the fridge. No recipe, but basically, just add basil, parmesan, toasted pine nuts, garlic, salt and olive oil to food processor and blitz. Great to stir through pasta and veggies, or dollop on top of soups.
Pies
Look, it’s true that I made shepherd’s pie last week just so I could sing ‘A Little Priest’ while prepping it. But it was so worth it, because it tasted great! I wouldn’t even know where to start with a recipe, but I just sweated off some finely diced carrot, onion, celery and garlic added some lamb mince, stock, and simmered the crap out of it for a while. I then added other veggies that needed to be used up (some peas and corn) and then poured into a casserole and topped with mashed potato. Make swirly patterns on the potato and then crumble some panko crumbs over the top. Bake until all crunchy and bubbly and it looks like this:
And chicken pie is a perennial favourite around here. A little maths humour on top because I’m a nerd. Find whatever chicken pie recipe works for you!
Pasta e ceci
My kid has never, not once, never eaten pasta out of a can in her life, and yet, decided to tell me that my pasta e ceci which used Rustichella d’Abruzza Anellini looked like SpaghettiOs. I don’t really care, because it was beyond delicious and everyone had seconds. The recipe was from Smitten Kitchen.
So that’s how I’ve been spending my time in the kitchen. No banana bread to be found (I didn’t include the zucchini bread I baked, but that was wonderfully delicious slathered with soft salted butter), but lots of other things. We are all going about our lockdown experiences in ways that work best for us.
For me, that involves being around food. I guess a big part of it is wanting to nourish myself and my family because it’s something that I can do, and I know I can do it well. There is so much other uncertainty, but when I start to cook and bake something, I know exactly how it is going to turn out.
I have noticed that my reaction to hearing or reading something upsetting and stressful is to walk into the kitchen, open the pantry and start to load ingredients on the kitchen bench. I plug in my firetruck red Kitchenaid stand mixer, and off I go. ‘Nothing bad ever comes from creaming together butter and sugar’, I think to myself, as I become hypnotised by the paddle spinning around. My breathing slows down and my anxiety levels diminish. And cake! Soon there will be cake.
This morning I woke up, got myself organised for the day, headed to our local for our morning takeaway coffee. And then I ripped out my pump line on a door handle.
Which, all in all, seems like a pretty damn appropriate way to celebrate my twenty-second diaversary.
One day I might get good at diabetes. But I guess today is not that day.
Other diaversary posts
Let’s not talk diabetes or COVID-19 for a minute, and instead talk about the things that have been occupying my mind, making me laugh or perplexed or weirded out over the last week or so.
- This from Feel Good Eating’s Insta today struck a chord as I’ve been happily culling anyone who so much as hints at how disgusting the idea of eating more or putting on weight is during lockdown. Just stop it!
- So, it turns out that I do need exercise, and walking is the way for me to clear my head. In the past, all the incidental walking I could get done in a day was enough for me, but unless I actually make an effort to get out, I feel all sludgy and blah at the end of the day. (I think they are technical terms.) As well as clearing my head, I’ve been enjoying the stunning last flushes of roses across people’s fence lines. Gorgeous way to re-calibrate when I need to.
- I have new leopard print leggings and I don’t even know who I am anymore. I love them, they are super comfortable and I don’t care that my kid won’t even look at me she is so disappointed and embarrassed.
- Baking bread is THE most therapeutic thing I have ever done. Check out this focaccia I made the other day to have with homemade roasted pumpkin soup…
- Tiger King. Please talk to me about this. I have so, so many questions I need answered.
- HOW DRY ARE YOUR HANDS???? I’ve gone old school and using Nivea Crème, (you know, the one that comes in flat blue tins), to try to combat the ridiculously dry hands that are the result of the constant hand washing/sanitising. It seems to work better than the Aesop hand cream I usually keep handy, (see what I did there?), because it’s thicker. Anyone else have something else that has been working like a charm?
- Here’s something to read that’s NOT COVID-19 or diabetes related: My husband, the music nerd, has started a blog and it is excellent. You can read about music reviews, music theory, music instruments and gear, music history. Basically, all things music. You should check it out here.
- For the love of all that is good, check what’s going on behind you before doing Zoom calls! Unknown to me, this is what was on display behind me for the first week of working from home…
- I’ve never really been the crafting type; but making pom-poms is calming and a great way to decorate pretty much everything.
- Effin’ Birds has all the COVID-19 messaging you need.
I’m searching for silence. We’re lucky that we have enough space at home that we are not tripping over each other. We have outdoor areas to escape to where we can feel the warm sun on our faces, and can lock ourselves in different rooms when we need some space.
The noise in my head seems a lot harder to quieten. I have had to force myself to stop looking at COVID-19 data. As someone who generally avoids analysing my own diabetes numbers, I’ve suddenly become addicted to daily and weekly COVID-19 data. I have come to believe myself to be expert in statistics. (I’m really not. I don’t even really know what exponential means.)
Adding pandemic data to diabetes data is overwhelming in ways I never knew possible…
I’m avoiding a lot of online noise by not simply spending a lot less time there. I look for my peers online to see how they are and what they are sharing and saying. I avoid pretty much everything else – there seems to be so much needless chatter. I’m not really sure why some people in the diabetes world feel they have pivoted to infectious disease specialists. Sometimes, the best thing we can do is be silent, and not need to hear the sound of our own tweets…
We’ve been going for walks after dinner each night. Daylight saving ends this weekend, so that routine may need to change, but right now, it bookends the day nicely as we get some fresh air before we cocoon in for the night. Our usually bustling neighbourhood is quiet. Hardly any cars driving on the roads, far fewer people on the streets. Anyone taking their evening passeggiata keeps their distance and there is no stopping for anything more than a little wave.
The other night, as we walked, I took this photo. The timing was perfect, the setting sun lining up perfectly with one of the many laneways near our home – and inner-Melbourne version of Manhattanhenge. I stood there and snapped and listened. There was not a single sound. I breathed deeply. The world was silent. Perfectly, beautifully silent.
So, today I had a moment and completely lost it. Tears – big, fat tears – sobbing and ugly, snotty crying. I didn’t even try to hide it, which is what I would usually do. There’s no hiding anymore now that we are all living in confined spaces and pretty much on top of each other all the time. (Sorry to the neighbours if they heard too. Inner-city living means not much space between house boundaries…)
I felt a lot better afterwards. Lighter and less overwhelmed. I realised that being all peppy and positive was weighing me down – perhaps that annoying Pollyanna-ish exterior was becoming like an armour.
I really try to not do the whole ‘what if’ stuff. This was something that I worked on for a long time with my psychologist. Catastrophising diabetes isn’t a great idea at the best of times. Adding a pandemic to the ruinous thinking isn’t especially fun.
It’s not surprising that people with diabetes are talking more about how our mental health is faring in the current situation. Living with a life-long condition that is so demanding and has the ability to mess with our minds in the most insidious way already makes us susceptible to feeling distressed. Now, it feels like that has been turned up to eleven.
I’m trying to remember how I learnt to move from thinking ‘what if <insert whichever scenario was terrifying me at that moment>’ to ‘what if it never happens’. It took me a long time to understand how to do that, with varying levels of success. There were always scenarios that made me feel extra level anxious, and it was a struggle to try to be rational. I found that by allowing myself to think about the most worrying, scary and uncertain things for a set amount of time – giving permission, I guess, to the worry and concern – I could then move on.
It turns out that pandemics bring out the catastrophising. The end-of-days thinking is not especially good for one’s already stressed mental health. Thinking about the things that are happening or that could happen is hard. Hard and scary and terrifying.
This week, I’ve kept coming back to how the Diabetes MILES study showed that the number one problem area for people who participated in the study was worrying about the future and development of diabetes-related complications. There is so much fear of the unknown in diabetes. We just don’t know how it will all play out. We do what we can, we assess and try to minimise risk, we do the best we can with the situation we are in. But we don’t really know what is around the corner.
COVID-19 is that all over again. But with diabetes thrown in for good measure.
Today, I gave permission for the worry and concern to come out because pushing it away wasn’t working. It flooded over me and weighed me down. And then I allowed the tears and the sobs. I didn’t try to stop it, I didn’t try to hide it away. And then…then I could breathe again, and work on the things that help me feel lighter.
So, I’m breathing so deeply. I’m standing in the sunshine. I’m watching our littlest dog run around in circles because she (still) hasn’t realised that she’s not a new puppy anymore. I’m listening to my husband play music. I’m listening to my kid’s laughter because it’s my favourite sound.
And I’m still muttering to myself that this too shall pass. Not yet, and maybe not for some time, but it will. This. Too. Shall. Pass.
Diabetogenic 