As a child, I had discounted many career paths on the grounds of their incompatibility with my haphazard organisational skills and love of sleep!! Astronaut was out –  commute was too long and stressful! I seem to remember some career questionnaire suggested I become a lawyer, but I discounted that on the grounds that the same suggestion had been made for no fewer than 4 of my closest friends and therefore the exercise was clearly flawed! I also ruled myself out of any career in the medical profession, a decision for which I’m sure the GMC has been eternally grateful!  However, 1st February 2004 I was forced to face the very real certainty that I would have to step up and become competent in all things medical. For that was the day T1diabetes arrived in our lives and has demanded house room with us ever since.

Our middle daughter cannot remember the 229 days of her life when she wasn’t used as the familial pin cushion! This is hardly surprising as none of us do remember our early infancy, but I’m not sure I remember a lot of our life before T1 either.

We all have our own diagnosis stories so I won’t bore you too much with ours, other than to say I can still picture our tiny baby lying on a hospital trolley surrounded by a scrum of doctors and nurses all fighting desperately to save her from the advanced stage of DKA that she was in.  I can recall with alarming clarity every detail of the professor’s appearance who ushered us to the corner of the room and broke the news to us that she was in DKA.  I remember him looking at us to see whether we knew the enormity of the words he’d just said. I also remember the flash of relief that crossed his face when he heard my first question “How do we manage this?”.  For I already knew we couldn’t yet cure her.

In this blog I shall sometimes recall the seemingly impossible situations we were in when she was so very tiny.  I also hope to share some of the funny things that have happened to us along the way and the wonderful adventures we’ve been on together.  For I feel very blessed to be celebrating our 9th diagnosis anniversary today. After all, I may never have known the funny, cheeky, beautiful, stroppy and stubborn little girl she has become.  And that is something I’m very grateful T1 hasn’t robbed us of!