About

— Sue, Mar-2009

Fiftysomething, curious, passionate about lots of things, I spend way too much time on the Internet!

I have LADA – Latent Autoimmune Diabetes of Adulthood, also known as Diabetes Type 1.5, and it’s one of the reasons for this blog.

Diagnosed in 1978 with Type 2 Diabetes, I was OK for many years. I had nearly 26 years when I could almost control it with diet and tablets, and only used insulin during a pregnancy 20 years ago. Who knows whether I had LADA all along, but a few years ago, nothing much was working so I went onto insulin.

In my quest to get an insulin pump, I knew that diagnosed as a Type 2, I couldn’t get subsidised pump supplies, so it was out of the question. I knew about LADA, and kept asking for tests. Kept that up for about 2 years until my endo finally agreed, but only to rule it out for sure.

Everyone in my medical team was really surprised that the GAD Antibody test came back “highly positive”.  A repeat of the test 3 months later came back with the same result. I was the least surprised, considering I have other autoimmune conditions. But this meant that my quest for an insulin pump had begun in earnest.

I had done lots of research and had settled on an Animas 2020. It was the best choice for me for many reasons and I’m more than happy with it!!!

In early June, 2009, I started on the pump and since then, I’ve never had such good blood glucose and HbA1C test results. I hope to continue to improve those numbers, with even tighter control.

I live in the beautiful Northern Rivers of Australia with its gorgeous beaches, stunning hinterland and its mish-mash of interesting people.

In my other non-blogging life, I’m a accounting consultant, working primarily with MYOB, and I’m a web designer, working with Joomla, Magento, WordPress & Blogger, to name a few. I use a Mac and a PC (depends on what I’m doing).

I’m married to a sweet, gorgeous Persian man, who arrived in Australia in 2008. I have one 21yo daughter (from a previous relationship), who currently lives in Qld but visits often. We have a dog, a Border Collie rescue named Charly (we assume from “Charlene”), and a 15 year old Somali Abyssinian cat, named Simba.

For a pretend-foodie, diabetes is about the last disease I’d want. I’m stuck with it, unfortunately, along with Lupus and a few other autoimmune conditions!

This blog started out being something general that I thought I’d add to from time to time. Somehow, it evolved into a more of a diabetes and insulin pumping blog. If you can learn something, great! If you just enjoy reading, great too!

Here’s some stuff from my Facebook profile:

Interests:
People, politics, philosophy, food, geography, weather, science, astronomy, computers, news & current affairs, medicine, reading, movies and more.

Favourite Music:
I love music!

I listen to almost anything ethnic – Hebrew/Arabic (eg Wael Kfoury, Haim Moshe, Sarit Hadad, Samira Said, Youval Ron, Alisa Fineman, Stalos and Oren Chen, Alon de Loco, Gad Elbaz), Latino, Greek (esp. Notis Sfakinakis), Turkish (Tarkan), Irish (Bill Whelan), Maroccan Rai and more. Classical (esp. Bach, Vivaldi, Telleman), some opera, grunge including Incubus, Red Hot Chilli Peppers, Nickelback, Persian Dance music (Omid, Jamshid, Black Cats, KamyR etc), and more!

Favourite Books:
Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown (lame, I know… most people who’ve read it liked it)
The Blue Nowhere by Jeffrey Deaver.
God: The Interview by Terry Lane
My Life as a Traitor by Zarah Ghahramani

Favourite Quotations:
I love children but couldn’t eat a whole one.

About me:
Born in Sydney, and now living in Byron Bay since 1999, I have dual USA and Australian citizenship. When not working, I do volunteer work, am the mother of a young adult (living with friends) and I spend my spare time (what spare time?) with family, friends, pets and many hobbies.

Philosophy:
I like politics, religion, current affairs. There’s no one philosophy I follow. Eastern, western, I take a little from everyone and turn it into my own. From Plato to Richard Dawkins & Christopher Hitchens, from Osho to Chopra, from Kabbala to Jung, Hafez to Alfred Lord Tennyson and beyond.

— Follow me on Twitter