Hi everyone,
I'm a film maker and recent member of the type one posse. I was diagnosed on Feb 4th 2012 at age 38 - quite late on in life I'm told. Well, It's certainly been a year to remember - although I only have vague memories as most of the time was spent in shock and adaptation. It's a year that has of course changed my life.
To me, my diagnosis represented the end of my life.. Certainly the end of the life I was accustomed to. I sank into a deep depression and my world consisted of waking up, eating a 30gram carb breakfast then testing.... then testing again and again and again. Then a carb counted lunch followed by more testing and for pudding.... more testing. Then dinner and more testing. 40 jabs a day into my sore fingers. Then bed... and anxiety and sleeplessness etc etc. you get the picture. I left my job and isolated myself from everyone I knew, especially the doctors and nurses that kept trying to contact me.
Life was over as I had lost my free will. Or rather my freedom had been taken from me. That fact that I had attacked myself and this wasn't some exotic disease I'd caught made things even more terrible.
No more fun... no festivals, no travel, no more booze, no dancing (hypo mid dancefloor) no children, no partner, no spontaneity, no staying up all night , no thought of ambition ... no nothing....
I was not in a good mood.
Life carried on in this vein for a long time. Then I discovered this site and met some amazing people whom offered me a different perspective and suggested that there may be hope of life after diagnosis.
Slowly I came to realise that having T1 Diabetes is not a death sentence but more of a deviation from where you were before.
I still struggle and find life difficult sometimes but I now have a sense of hope for my life and a will to try to find my old self...
With this in mind, I have decided to make a film about finding life again after diagnosis. It will be essentially aimed at folks who have had a fairly late (ish) diagnosis and are in that scary place where they are perhaps struggling to find themselves again.
I'm working with some people who have had D all of their lives and also with some that were diagnosed later in life.
All of their input is fantastic but I would love to throw the net wide and get some insight from anyone on this wonderful site that may be interested in contributing in some way. I have no specific parameters to the kind of help I need as all of it is welcome at this stage. But what would be great for me is to hear from people whom have had similar experiences to myself. Stories and insight into how people cope/ adjust /reconfigure their lives . Or perhaps you are not doing too well and have questions that need answering. Maybe you've got through the worst of it and have a few choice morsels of advice that you wish you'd been told earlier.... Pretty much all and everything is welcome. But the general premise is how to live again. My hope for this project is that in the final analysis , someone who has just been told they have Diabetes can find this film and watch it and may rest a little easier and find their live again.
If you have any suggestions and would like to get involved please just inbox me.
Thanks,
JJ