something else

This weekend, I'm at the inaugural AMSL Diabetes Sports and Exercise Weekend at the Australian Institute of Sports, Canberra. I'm here because I was offered a sponsored spot, and I'm extremely grateful to Australian Medical and Scientific Ltd., for the opportunity. As I look around the crowd, I note that the majority of attendees are in their 20's - 30's, but there is a good handful of people in their 50's. I note this, because I have an agenda. I'm not just here to learn more about the physiology of Diabetes and exercise, I'm going to ask some hard questions about ageing and exercise. I'm going to ask where the support for the psychological effort that you need to make as you get older, to keep yourself motivated, is. I'm going to ask, "Who is doing research into Chronic conditions and motivation?" I know there is research into the physiology of exercise and it's effects upon glucose levels, that's part of what we are doing ...

I've been meaning to start writing about how it feels to be getting older while living with a chronic illness. How it feels to be finding that I don't bounce quite as well as I used to, that I'm tireder, more stiff, more sore, less able, more unsure than I used to be and that I don't like it. We've just added yet another of the insidious auto-immune diseases to my collection, this time it is an under-active Thyroid, caused by a disease called 'Hashimoto's Disease', fairly common and more common in women with Type 1. I like to tell myself that I'm immune to the long term effects of Type 1. That because I didn't 'get it' until I was 25, (oh my goodness, I've had T1 now for longer than I didn't have it!), I thought that the creeping long term effects wouldn't impact on me. No heart disease, no eye problems, no neuropathy, yeah all good... or is it? A long time ago, soon after I was diagnosed, someone told me, or I read it som...