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Tomorrow is Ash Wednesday, marking the beginning of Lent, and when I was a good Catholic kiddie, I used to do what Sister Mary-Magella expected and give up something for Lent as a form of atonement. Or something. I am a little sketchy on the details.
Inevitably, I would give up chocolate. All the kids gave up chocolate. (I remember once saying that I was going to give up wine, but that didn’t fly with Sister Mary-Magella because I was only about nine years old at the time and she figured that excluding vino from my diet wouldn’t be too much of a sacrifice. Clever nun.)
Here’s what I can tell you about my experiences of giving up something for Lent: I sucked at it.
I would announce that I was giving up chocolate in my 9am religion class and as soon as the words slipped from my lips, it was all I could think about. Suddenly, I wanted chocolate; I needed chocolate. Everything looked like chocolate and everywhere I turned, I saw chocolate. Chocolate. Chocolate.
But here’s the thing. We rarely ate chocolate when I was a kid. In fact, the chance of me actually eating chocolate on that day – a Wednesday – was slim to non-existent.
And yet, it was all I could think of. I couldn’t concentrate on learning about long division for all the thoughts of chocolate running through my mind.
Of course, I never, ever made it the full forty days without eating chocolate because the very next time it was offered to me – as that occasional treat, or at a friend’s place or at a party, I would dive straight in.
I think I learnt pretty early on that restriction is not a good idea.
But giving things up is still a big thing – and you don’t even need Catholic guilt to get in on the game these days. You may know it’s FebFast which is a month-long campaign to give up either alcohol or added sugar.
I understand that the idea of FebFast is to get back on track after the silly season of excess. But to me, I see that there is too much guilt associated with these sorts of campaigns. I don’t like the ‘You have been bad, now do your penance and atone’ attitude behind it.
Or perhaps, it’s just that, clearly, I have no self-discipline or willpower. As was demonstrated when I was nine and tried to give up chocolate for the first time.
Nowadays, I don’t do Lent. In fact the only reason I know that tomorrow is the start of Lent is because I know today is Mardi Gras and I am dreaming of being in New Orleans, eating beignets. And Mardi Gras is also Shrove Tuesday, which means that we will be eating pancakes at some point. Which I will be celebrating with flipping glee!
Heart-shaped pancake treats, made last week to celebrate World Nutella Day.
This morning, I drove my car straight into the tyre shop across the road from work. By the time I had turned off the ignition and stepped out of the car, a kind looking mechanic was standing next to me.
‘Morning, what can we do for you today?’
‘I haven’t made a booking, but I was wondering if you could help out. I need a tyre replaced and, while it’s in here a wheel alignment. Any chance you could do it today?’
‘Not a problem,’ he said. He walked around the car slowly. ‘You know, both those front tyres could do with replacing. Would you be happy for us to do that?’
We had a chat about options – he showed me photos of all the different tyres that would work on the car (all looked the same to me) and discussed the pros and cons of each. After I decided, I walked out of the shop, with the mechanic promising to call if there were any problems.
Service with a smile!
As a customer/client/stakeholder/friend/’insert latest buzz word here’ I like to feel that I am somewhat valued. I like to feel that I am not inconveniencing the person offering the service and I like to feel like my custom is appreciated.
Which was how I felt this morning as I walked out of the tyre shop.
And it’s exactly the opposite of how healthcare frequently makes us feel. It’s a system that is set up to be customer-unfriendly. And it’s what we – the users of the services – have come to expect. And sometimes, to accept.
From trying to get an appointment, to actually walking in the door, to collecting test results, the process can be difficult, convoluted and confusing, with roadblocks at every turn. Here are just a few things that you may come across as a user of healthcare.
- You need to see a new specialist, so you call to make an appointment. Most likely, the first thing you are told is that there will be a wait before the specialist can get you in. Possibly a long wait. A very long wait. Sometimes, you are told that new patients are not even welcome at this point in time. Sometimes you are told that you cannot actually make an appointment until your referring doctor has faxed (yes, seriously, FAXED!!!) across a referral.
- If you are lucky enough to actually get an appointment, a barrage of Things You Must Do are read out to you: Referral letter (if you have been allowed to make the appointment without one); get there early to fill in the forms; bring test results; bring x-rays etc. etc.
- You may be warned that if you do not show up or call within 24 hours (once I was told within a week!), you will still be charged for the service.
- If you have managed to get through all of that and still decide to go, then once you arrive, you are faced with a frequently unfriendly and unwelcoming receptionist who is there to basically act as a buffer between you and the doctor.
(Side note: I am going to say that I know that this is a thankless job at times. Many people think they are the most important person in the world and these same people think that the doctor should be bending over backwards to accommodate them. However, in my experience, most people do not think that way. I know I certainly don’t. Also, I have had many experiences of wonderful support staff greeting me when I have an appointment. The staff at my endo’s office are friendly, polite and delightful. At my GP, it is touch and go – some are lovely, one in particular makes me start to sweat in fear!)
- At first-time visits, you are given a clipboard with a wad over a paperwork and told to fill it all in. (This is where I weep a little and just wish that a centralised electronic medical system that worked was available and easily accessible so that I could simply write down my details and pass that over and all my information could be magically brought up on a magic computer.)
- Eventually, after having filled out the forms and provided information about every aspect of my life, the file gets returned to the reception desk and is often greeted with the words: ‘The doctor is running late. About 30 minutes.’ At this point, I sigh and possibly ask (as politely as I can) why I wasn’t told this when I called before going in to make sure that the doctor was running on time – a call that I made only 30 minutes earlier. Steely silence. No answer.
(From this week’s New Yorker’)
So, let’s just recap. It has taken months to get into see this doctor and I wasn’t even granted an appointment until I had jumped through so many hoops that I now also needed to see a physiotherapist because I had put my back out; when I eventually get there, I spend ages filling in information that I know is hardly going to be relevant. And now I am told that after having arrived early so that I could fill in the forms that the doctor is running about 30 minutes late and that I just have to deal with it.
(I’m not going to write about the actual doctor experience, because we know it can be good, it can be bad, it can be disastrous ‘This isn’t going to work, but thanks for your time. I’ll just go pay my bill…..’ which is something that happened when I was interviewing endos a few years back.)
- You leave with another ream of paper – prescriptions, test requests, perhaps another referral letter and are told to call back in a week’s time to get the results.
- But a week later when you call, a new dance starts. ‘No, you can’t speak with the doctor,’ you are told, when you say that you are calling – as requested – to get results. ‘The doctor speaks to people between 1 and 1.15 Monday and Thursday. You’ll need to call back then.’
- You ask if the doctor could either call you back or even email me the results, which gets a response of horror, ‘No we do not correspond via email. The internet is not safe.’ (I at this point, do not say what is going through my head – ‘I do all my banking on the internet and I am not concerned about privacy there. And I am certainly not likely to care who knows what my hand X-ray shows.’ Because there is no point.
- After about four attempts, you eventually get to speak with the doctor who will probably (hopefully) tell you that all is clear and to make another appointment for 12 months’ time.
- It seems that every part of the system is designed to keep apart the two people who actually need to be in the same room, looking at each other and truly engaging.
And this is deemed okay?
It’s not. How many of us would return to a shop if we were treated this way. Even if the people we are speaking with are lovely – which is usually the case – the system is ridiculous. It’s broken, seemingly beyond repair. And I can’t think of any other service where the customer is considered an annoyance. Can you think of any other service where the customer is treated this way?
I just had a call from my friendly tyre mechanic. My car is going to be ready an hour later than he thought and he wanted to let me know. I thanked him and commented on how much I appreciated the phone call. I was probably a bit gushy as I am when impressed with the service I’m receiving. ‘Not a problem at all,’ he said. ‘We like happy customers.’
And I like to be a happy customer!
It’s 7.25pm on Sunday evening. I am battle-scarred from a hypo that hit me like a ten tonne truck. It was 6 hours ago now, but I am still foggy and so fatigued.
We were out – at our local shops picking up a few things. All of a sudden, I felt like I was going to fall over. One of my legs gave way, I was dizzy and I couldn’t find the words I needed. Focusing hard, I looked at the kid and said ‘We need to get out of here.’ I passed her my phone and she called Aaron who was in another shop nearby, asking him to come and find us.
Where had this come from? My CGM started wailing at the moment that Aaron joined us. But when I looked over the previous few hours, I could see that I had been sitting around 4mmol/l for the whole time. Until I dipped – suddenly – and it seemed the CGM trace took a little while to catch up. The wailing continued as I gulped back orange juice and groped for my pump to silence the alarm.
It was almost fifteen minutes later before I was ready to move. As I sat there, I very consciously started to notice the fuzziness in my head, the overwhelming and all-encompassing exhaustion hit. My eyelids began to droop and my eyes were having trouble focusing, my hair was wet at my neck making me shiver, and my hands were shaking a little. The noises around me sounded like they were coming through a tunnel – everything echoed, but sounded muted and fluffy.
Eventually, we got up and got home and I went straight to bed. I took off my shoes, lay down, and was shivering as I fell asleep, almost instantly. And I slept – a deep, heavy, dreamless sleep. Two hours later I woke up and was ready to move again – slowly and gingerly at first.
And now. Six hours later. I am sitting on the couch, and in between writing I stare out the front window onto our street. It’s a gorgeous night – warm, but not too warm, with a gorgeous cool breeze blowing through our open front door. I hear the leaves flutter in the trees in the garden, people walk by, chatting to each other, and the folk across the road are having a band rehearsal. It’s peaceful; it’s Sunday night and I’m starting to think of the week ahead.
And in my thoughts about school lunches, and work schedules, and everything else, I have another thought. I don’t have it often, but when I do, it’s always the same.
I feel a pull at the bottom of my stomach.
My breath catches in my throat.
Tears spring to my eyes.
I wish I didn’t have diabetes.
Almost fourteen and a half years ago, I took up a very part time job at Diabetes Victoria.
The diabetes world was a little different back then and today, as I packed up my office and was farewelled by a group of amazing women I have been honoured to call my team, I reflected back over the years.
- I had been using a pump for about five months when I started working there. It was the first time that many people in the organisation had ever seen one and there were a lot of questions.
- The pump situation in Australia was a little different to today. If you wanted a pump, you had a choice of a Medtronic 507C or a Disetronic DTron.
- Smart pumps were not a thing yet!
- There was no DAFNE yet either.
- The few of us who were pumping had to self-fund the consumables to the tune of about $300 per month.
- It was in May 2004, after a lot of lobbying, that the Government announced that pump consumables would be listed on the NDSS, reducing their costs to about $30 per month. This was the first taste I ever had of political lobbying and advocacy and I loved it!
- Within my first three weeks of being in the job, about half a dozen different women called saying they wanted information about diabetes and pregnancy. We didn’t have anything, so together with some like-minded groups, we set about developing a resource that provided all the information women wanted in a format they liked. That was my first taste of realising how important it was to listen to the ‘consumer’ and it became the overarching philosophy of my work.
- No one was talking prevention of type 2 diabetes. And when that started, it started a discussion about a huge issue.
- No one was talking about diabetes and mental health – except those of us living with the condition. We knew that it was real; we knew that burnout was debilitating; we knew that our mental health directly correlated with our ability to manage our diabetes. Seeing the Australian Centre for Behavioural Research in Diabetes become a real thing has been a game changer for people with diabetes as it has opened the discussion in ways we could only have imagined!
- People with diabetes at diabetes conferences? Not really, but we have made some strides there! (Psssst….but not enough!)
- Social media? Not a thing back in 2001. Now, online support, which was fledgling to say the least back in 2001, is everywhere and accessible by many, many people.
What a change a (almost) decade and a half makes! The diabetes landscape is very different. I’m glad I get to still be a player in this space in my new national job.
But today, it’s about saying goodbye.
And with that, I want to acknowledge a group of women. These women:
To (in alphabetical order), Alice, Angela, Anika, Carolyn, Elise, Elizabeth, Jane, Kelly, Kim and Kristina: thank you for making my last day so lovely. But more so, thank you for being the people who ‘do’. Each and every day, you come into work and do things alongside – in partnership – with people affected by diabetes to improve their lives in some way. Your commitment to people living with diabetes is second to none, there is no other team like this one in Australia and the work that you do each and every day is, in fact, life changing. We hear that frequently.
I am so fortunate that I got to lead you in my clumsy and sometimes ranty way, and I thank you all for indulging me as you have. I wish you all the best and will be watching – very closely – all your future successes.
With a mixture of sadness and excitement in equal measure, next week I am leaving Diabetes Victoria after over fourteen years. It was a difficult decision to make – I resigned from a job that I genuinely love and from working with a team of women I greatly admire. But fourteen years is a long time to be in one place and the time felt right.
I resigned just before going on three weeks of leave, and even though I didn’t really have any plans beyond finishing up at the end of January, I felt a great sense of calm.
As one of those people who likes to plan everything, have to-do lists and know what is around the corner, this was incredibly out of character for me. What was I thinking leaving one job without having another lined up? And what was I doing leaving something that I love so very, very much? This was nothing short of madness. Where was the plan? Where was the pros and cons list? Where was the back up? (Actually, now I am hyperventilating….)
I’ve always thought this control freak tendency is a response to living with a health condition that doesn’t actually allow you to plan all that much. It also laughs in the face of to-do lists, probably because my to-do list would look like this:
Living with diabetes has meant that I really like to have a safety net in place when I can. So, jumping from one job without another to go to was a huge, huge decision and quite unusual. I did know that I wanted to stay working in the diabetes space, but that was pretty much it.
As it turns out, the planets aligned and I am not going all that far. I will be taking up a national role with Diabetes Australia which is terribly exciting. It’s a part time job, meaning that I will have more time to dedicate to writing – for myself and others – as well as doing some consulting work.
I feel that it’s the right time in my life to broaden what I do, and I feel very fortunate that I will be working in job with a focus on diabetes advocacy and activism. I love change – one of the reasons I stayed so long at Diabetes Victoria was that my role continually evolved and transformed – so I am really excited to see what happens next. Come along with me for the ride!
For work, I signed up to a new healthcare app that would magically and algorithmically measure my health. Health apps frequently annoy the bejeezus out of me. You can tell the ones that have never met a real person and that the boffin who is developing the app lives a lonely life in a cave without regular contact with anything with heartbeat. (Shout out five million to my fave app, MySugr, because it is developed BY people with diabetes FOR people with diabetes so it, you know, works.)
Anyway, to sign up for this one, I had to fill in a few details about my health and wellbeing and then I got a final health score. It was pretty thorough. I added things like my most recent blood pressure, cholesterol reading, height, weight, food (which, despite ridiculously frequent mentions of cupcakes and doughnuts on this blog is mostly fresh, home-cooked and healthy), exercise (ha!) and health conditions. I ticked the ‘no’ box for every single one of those, except, of course, type 1 diabetes.
My overall score came back at 65%. I then was given a list of measures that I could take to increase my health, most of which I already do (other than exercising to which I am a conscientious objector).
I decided to test this little app and re-entered all my data with one little change. This time, I ticked the ‘no’ box for every single health condition.
The magic little algorithm spat out a new result. Suddenly, I was now 90% healthy. The suggestions to improve this number focused solely on doing more some exercise.
So, here’s the question. Am I significantly less healthy because I have type 1 diabetes?
My answer to that question is no. When I consider the level of attention I give to my health today as compared with before being diagnosed with diabetes, I would say that I am a lot more in tune and interested in my health now. I couldn’t tell you what my blood pressure or cholesterol was before I was diagnosed. Can now! I have regular check-ups and screening for things that probably would have slipped under the radar before.
And when I think about friends the same age as me – an age where we start to be reminded of the sorts of things about which we might want to speak with our doctor – I know that I definitely more on the ball than most of them.
Perhaps I have had to reshape what being healthy really means. Maybe pre-diagnosis I would have considered needing to medicate myself each and every day while monitoring my health closely would equal being unhealthy. But that’s not how I think. I think that I am healthy – and part of that is because I do those things. I am not ‘healthy even though I have diabetes.’ I am just … ‘healthy’.
Am I in denial? Have I rewritten what healthy means to accommodate my health condition?
Or is it true. I am healthy. And sure, I could be healthier, but that has to do with laziness and I don’t mean the laziness of my beta cells.
That time I exercised.
Last night, Aaron and I joined a group of friends at the beautiful Sun Theatre in Yarraville for a ‘cinematic experience’. Harking back to the ‘good ol’ days’, we saw a film shot in 70mm Ultra Panavision with an overture at the beginning, an intermission of exactly 13 minutes in the middle and a souvenir program to take home at the end. (We’ll ignore the fact that rather than watching Ben Hur, introduced by Bill ‘Golden Age of Hollywood’ Collins, we were watching Quentin Tarantino’s eighth movie, ‘Hateful Eight’ (H8ful Eight??? Hateful 8???) with all the gore and violence – yet surprisingly still so much grace and beauty – one has come to expect in a Tarantino film.)
Often, there is much chatter about the ‘good ol’ days’. I get it. It was a time where things seemed simpler: kids were kids, adults were adults and everyone knew where they belonged. Milk came in bottles with cream on top….And I walked ten miles to school and twenty miles home, all uphill.
We can look back nostalgically at different periods in history. And it’s funny how history repeats itself. I remember hearing my father telling me how lousy the 1980s music I loved was compared to the music he loved. And yet his favourite music – the Beatles, Frank Sinatra, Simon and Garfunkel – would have had the same said about them. I try to catch myself before I criticise the trash music daughter is listening to now, because I remember how annoying it was (and how distressed I was) when my dad criticised Morten Harket.
Last week, Aaron got into a Facebook discussion that started off being about music and somehow ended up not being about music. The person he was ‘speaking’ with was saying that everything was better in the ‘olden days’.
‘Everything?’ asked Aaron
‘Yes,’ she replied. ‘Everything!’ She then went on to explain what she included in her ‘everything’ – music, food, medicine…
He quickly jumped in and pointed out that thanks to advances in medicine, his wife is still around. The olden days were really not all that great for those living with a health condition such as type 1 diabetes.
Perhaps because I am a beneficiary of all that the ‘modern era’ has to offer, I have no nostalgia or desire to go back in time. Because for me, along with sentimental thoughts of kids playing in the streets until dusk – and playing meant being outside, not sitting in front of a console – and cooking meant making foods from scratch and a telephone call was something made from a phone with a chord, there would be the practicalities of boiling syringes and sharpening needles and an inability to accurately measure BGLs and a life without diabetes technology. Bygone era? No. Be gone!
I would take the modern era and all its so-called short comings in a heartbeat over the ancient era of medicine! Through our rose-coloured glasses we forget that there were days before vaccines and days when life expectancy was shorter. We forget that there were not tests or screening to identify different conditions, that mental health was rarely, if ever, discussed. We forget that only 94 years ago – not that long ago – there was no medication to treat someone with type 1 diabetes.
So with all this in mind, read what is coming next. Here is an update on a couple of the many artificial pancreas projects happening today.
I want a cure as much as the next person. But in the meantime, keep the DTech coming. Please.
Yesterday, we took the kidlet to her new orthodontist. We had been referred from her dentist and this was going to be the first discussion about the kid needing braces. She had a bit of nervousness about the whole process and wasn’t feeling all that great. She was also concerned that there would be pain involved. But, as I explained, this was just a chance for us to hear what was ahead and hopefully be able to ask any questions we might have. Plus she could meet the people at the clinic who she would be seeing regularly. And I also reminded her several times that if she didn’t feel comfortable with what she saw and who we met, we could go elsewhere.
The second we walked in, I knew that we would be staying with this clinic. The first thing we noticed on the wall was a white board which said ‘Welcome to today’s new patients’ and we spotted our kid’s first name up there with a few other names. The kidlet felt pretty good about that!
We walked to the front desk, and a lovely woman smiled at us all and turned her attention straight to the kidlet, saying hello and welcoming her to the clinic and introducing herself. She made eye contact the whole time with the kid before turning to hand me a clipboard. ‘Would you mind filling this in please? And, if it’s okay with you,’ she said turning back to the eleven year old, ’I’d like to show you around.’
The two of them went on a little tour of the practise and I heard them chatting away, the kidlet asking questions as each different space was introduced. When the kid returned to us in the waiting room, she was holding a clipboard of her own. ‘I need to fill this in,’ she said, and took great care answering questions about her likes and dislikes and interesting things about herself.
A short while later, the dental nurse came into the waiting room and, again, went straight to the kid. ‘Hi, I’m K,’ she said holding out her hand. ‘Is this mum and dad?’ She asked turning to us.
‘Now, I need to take some photos – just in that room over there. The room is tiny – are you okay to come by yourself? Or you can bring mum or dad if you’d like.’ The kidlet jumped up and smiled, clearly very pleased at being asked directly what she wanted. ‘I’ll be fine,’ she said.
The rest of the appointment continued the same way. When we were shown into the treatment room, K explained exactly what would happen once the orthodontist entered the room. The orthodontist welcomed the kidlet first and then introduced herself to us. The kidlet was asked regularly if she had any questions and anything she did ask was answered efficiently and clearly. She was congratulated on asking smart questions (mostly different versions of ‘is it going to hurt’) and no one tried to rush through things or to dismiss any of our questions.
The practical side of things – i.e how we would need a second mortgage to afford the treatment – was explained clearly to the grown-ups in the room and the ‘rewards’ system (a points program which earned gift vouchers) was explained to the kid. She looked delighted!
We left the clinic feeling very well informed. All our questions had been answered and we knew exactly what was going to happen next. The kidlet felt really positive about the whole experience too.
This is ‘patient-centred’ care at its best. It’s not just lip-service – it was far more than the staff all being overwhelmingly lovely. They were genuinely focused on ensuring that everyone knew what was going on and that the kid understood that this was all about her. She was given options – each of them explained to her – and then we were asked to think about them and make decisions, with the option of being able to ask further questions if needed.
So what does this level of care and attention take? It certainly took no more time that would be expected of a first consultation. There were no more staff members involved than at any other clinic offering the same service.
But what it did take is care and attention and an understanding of the ‘customer’. And respect. A lot of respect.
The weather this weekend was punishing. Heat waves and diabetes don’t work together well at the best of times, and this was no different. It hit 42 degrees Celsius on Saturday (which translates to over 107 degrees for those of you who speak Fahrenheit).
My BGLs ranged from LO to 30mmol/l over the weekend. And today, with the temperature sitting in the far more respectable low 20s, I am drained, weary and exhausted.
I have started to really understand the way we deal with diabetes things changes over time. A weekend of horribly variable BGLs would always leave me feeling a bit battered, but not like this. Nasty hypos would need a little recovery time, but these days, that time stretches to longer and longer.
I am less able to bounce back feeling ‘back to normal’ takes considerably longer than it once did.
This is, I am sure, a combination of me getting older as well as my diabetes getting older. But when I feel my age most is when I am dealing with diabetes.
I’ve not had diabetes all that long – certainly not when measured against friends younger than me who have had it a lot longer – yet there is a change. Wide variability in my BGLs is draining, leaving me exhausted in ways I’ve never felt exhausted before. It is a bone-weary fatigue that overtakes my very being.
And the only way I know how to try to avoid those swings is to wear my Dexcom all the time. I have been really quite averse to this – I don’t like the constant alarms, I don’t like the look of the device on my body all the time and I don’t like having numbers available to me at all times. But it is the only way.
Because even when I am lacking motivation, I will do something – even something small – to respond to the alarms and the out of range numbers.
Tomorrow afternoon I head off on three weeks of leave and I will be wearing my CGM throughout that time. Having a break will mean that there is more of a chance for me to pay attention, respond to and catch rogue ‘excursions’ (sounds far more fun than they are!).
I know what will happen. I will see better numbers, which in turns makes me feel better, which in turn makes me feel more motivated, which in turn means that I take more care with everything; which in turn means I see better numbers, and Hakuna Matata, it’s the circle of diabetes.
The hot weather is only just starting here, opportunities for rollercoaster days will be many. But I have the tools at hand to try to stop them, or at least manage them as well as possible. And I’d be stupid not to.
We were a little excited the other day to discover that Kermit Ruffins has a holiday album. Disappointingly, it hasn’t been added to our collection yet, but here is a taste!
At the risk of sounding Grinch-like, there is one thing about Xmas that really, really annoys me. It’s Kris Kringle (sometimes called Secret Santa). We also do a version called ‘Bad Santa’ which is unusually cruel in that people are able to steal gifts they prefer from others.
I find them all a complete and utter waste of time and, quite frankly, money. All up, we (Aaron and I) spend about $120 on KK gifts each Xmas – four KK gifts at the limit of $30 per gift. Please understand it is not the total cost that annoys me. It’s the total waste of it.
At the risk of sounding ungrateful, I don’t need anything. And for $30 I struggle to find something that is fun (and different from the bottle of wine/designer tea/candle that I usually buy).
I have made this very clear to my family who, if reading this, please ignore my Scrooge-iness and let’s all have a nice Xmas dinner!
For a few years now, I have suggested that instead of buying gifts for each other, we pool our $30 each and make a donation to a charity. It actually would add up to a decent amount and has the potential to make a significant difference in the lives of people far less fortunate than us.
Of course, for me, there would be no better way to spend this money than on a charity that is improving lives of people living with diabetes. With the $120 that just Aaron and I spend on KK presents, we could provide life-saving insulin for two years for a child in a country where medication is prohibitively expensive.
I am sure that I will love the bowl or bottle of champagne or colouring-in book I receive from my KK this year. But really, it will make no difference in my life. It will not improve it. Again, I get that I sound ungrateful to the cousin or aunt who has purchased this gift for me, and while I don’t mean to, it is the way I feel.
It feels wasteful. And there are so many ways that the money could be better spent.
So, today I have made a couple of donations. I have made a donation to Spare a Rose, Save a Child, adding to the monthly contribution I already make. The money I have donated will go to the IDF’s Life for a Child program and provide insulin or BGL strips for 12 months to a child who would not otherwise be able to access these supplies.
And I am also making a donation to Type 1 International to help their work in ensuring people with type 1 diabetes around the globe have access to insulin, diabetes consumables and medical care.
If my KKs are reading this, please feel free to give me a handmade card with a little note telling me you have donated the amount of my gift to either of these charities – or another one that you support. I promise that I will think it the best KK present under the tree, and I also promise to stop being a Grinch!
Our Xmas album collection is eclectic. One album that is on frequent rotation in the silly season is Bela Fleck and the Flecktones and their version of The Twelve Days of Christmas is different to say the least! Enjoy if you can.
Diabetogenic 