Return of the insulin zombie

I guess I should open proceedings by apologising for my somewhat protracted hiatus. Work commitments combined with writer's block and more than degree of lethargy have left my blog feeling a little lonely recently.
So what's been happening? Well, I was very fortunate to be given a place on a DAFNE course which I completed in February. This was certainly one of the best things I've done since diagnosis. I couldn't fault the course. The content was brilliant but what really made it worthwhile was the delivery. Our facilitators, Berne and Carmel were second to none. Between them they have a tremendous level of expertise and I reckon they could teach a thing or two to some of my teaching colleagues about pedagogy and the imparting of knowledge in an interesting and enjoyable manner. They were also aided in their delivery by a positive and responsive group of willing students. All nine of us were positively disposed to the concept of DAFNE and gelled in a spirit of collaboration and support. We were all active participants and shared many interesting and often humorous experiences and anecdotes.
DAFNE (Dose Adjustment For Normal Eating) is a way of managing Type 1 diabetes and provides people with the skills necessary to estimate the carbohydrate in each meal and to inject the right dose of insulin. It's a relatively straightforward concept; find your correct background dose, work out your insulin - CP (carb point) ratio and take your mealtime dosage according to the carbs on your plate. As I said, a relatively straightforward concept but the execution isn't so easy to master and requires five days of intensive training with follow-up sessions and constant monitoring and tweaking. I've certainly embraced DAFNE but I'm far from an expert yet and still working at getting my own levels consistently within range. Even as I write this entry I'm just after registering 13.2, despite having taking what I thought was a dose consistent with the carbs on my plate; counting carbs can involve an fair degree of guesswork on some occasions! Still, I persevere and I'm mostly within range.
If you haven't come across DAFNE already I'd highly recommend you to follow up on it and check out if there's an opportunity to enrol in your area. In the meantime you'll find out lots of information on www.dafne.uk.com