Set Apart In Christ

Today is a day I’ve been looking forward to for a number of months. On this day, fifteen years ago, I was lying in a bed in the emergency ward of a Balinese hospital in a desperate state when a doctor whispered in my ear “We think you might have diabetes” (read the full story here ) A lot has happened since then. Somewhere in the vicinity of 13,000 needles, 25,000 finger pricks, and 1,000 infusion set changes for my insulin pump. But my life is much more than numbers, needles and insulin. Type 1 Diabetes is a diagnosis but it does not define who I am.

As you may be aware I'm currently in training for my first half marathon. I only started running seriously in January this year until I realised that all the excuses I had were only preventing me from getting the most out of life. I'm using this run as an opportunity to raise funds for the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation . Last night this report was aired on Australian television about some exciting new research into a vaccine that, it is hoped, will prevent Type 1 Diabetes. What I appreciated in this story was the fact that it recognised that Type 1 and Type 2 Diabetes may "look" very similar in their symptoms but are, in fact, different diseased. The first an autoimmune disease, then second brought on by a combination of lifestyle factors and genetics. Type 1 is incurable meaning anyone with this disease (under current medical treatments) will never stop requiring daily insulin injections or insulin pump therapy. Those with Type 2 have the hope of reducing or...

At the beginning of this year I was having a conversation with an Officer friend of mine, Captain Grant Sandercock-Brown. We've known each other for a long time, going back to the days when he was the bandmaster at Hurstville Corps and I was a know-it-all teenager. For my last two years of high school he was a teacher at the school I attended. All that's just to say; we go back a long way. Grant and his wife Sharon were appointed to the staff of the Training College at the beginning of the year and it's been great to work alongside them.

I've posted this for the last two years (originally written in 2010), and repost it today as the 27th March is the 12th Anniversary of this event. _______________________________________________________________________________ It's been 10 years since the disastrous events of my honeymoon and in that time I've told this story plenty of times, but have never actually sat down to write it out. I thought that since it's now 10 years since my diagnosis I would take the time to write out what happened to my wife and me on what was supposed to be a celebration of our new marriage... So here goes...  Megan and I were married on the 18th March, 2000 having been together since 1994. Megan was 15 when we started going out at The Salvation Army's Music Camp and I was 17. We've been together ever since. The weather on that mid-March Saturday was a scorching 35 degrees. The men in the bridal party had been out playing golf the day before and we all got sunburnt. So I wa...