My best friend has decided that she’s fed up with their not being enough awareness within the world about Type 1 diabetes and how hard it actually is to live with the condition and how it affects you day to day. So she has decided that she’d like participate in living a day in the life of a type 1 diabetic on the 13th/14th of December.

For this she is going to have to:

• Finger prick to test her levels every couple of hours and whenever she eats
• Carb count all the food she eats correctly 
• Wake up throughout the night to check her blood levels
• Work out how much she would have to inject... carb count to ratios...
• Etc...

She has said that this will be a challenge for her, but I will be there every step of the way for her during these 24 hours, just like she is with me for my whole life. 

Read on for my story all about Type 1 Diabetes...

I (Eleanor) was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes in 2011, when I was 9 years old. From this day onwards it changed my life forever, I knew nothing would just quite be the same again, and I knew there was going to be loads of different obstacles that I had to get through in order to keep living. But nothing stopped me! From the moment I was rushed into hospital and spent days in intensive care, I never gave up fighting, and I never will. There are days I’m so fed up with the condition and can’t think of anything else than “why me?” but I try not to let it stop me. 

On the 15th December 2011 I was rushed to hospital fading in and out of consciousness, where I was then put into an intensive care unit to try and get my body stabilised again. This was the day my life and my family’s lives changed forever. We didn’t know what had come upon us when we were told you’d have to inject yourself with a life saving liquid multiple times every day, and prick your fingers every day and carb count everything you eat and not being allowed to just pick something up and eat it, having to forward plan everything. This was how my life was going to plan out. And at this age I didn’t think that I’d have to live with it forever, but now I’ve realised, it’s stuck with me, I’m stuck with it until we find a cure.

There are so many different battles I have to face every day, and these range from a variety of physical battles to a variety of different mental battles I have to face as well. Type 1 diabetes is a health condition/ disability that no one can see. If a normal person was standing next to a type 1 diabetic, you’d struggle to be able to tell the difference. And until you got to know them a bit more and understood what they have to do each day you wouldn’t think there was much difference. 

I can’t thank my family and friends enough for everything they do for me in order to try and make living with Type 1 diabetes as easy as it can be. Even if they can’t do much, I know they’re all there and I can rely on them for a shoulder to cry on or arms for a hug. 

Over the past year I have been more involved with my diabetes and I have realised that it’s not at all a bad thing and a thing that I should be ashamed of and try hide... I have attended Type 1 events where I have met new people that are similar to me and have gone through/are going through the same type of things that I am. I have also down PowerPoints and presentations in front of some pupils and teachers at my school and I am just trying to spread more awareness.