#iCan Do Sport

I would consider sport amongst my biggest achievements with diabetes as it's one of biggest challenges that I've faced and feel I've overcome so far and it's one of the things that some people  never expected me to be able to do...

My relationship with sport truly began when it was the thing that masked my earlier diagnosis of diabetes. At the age of the 13 I used to enjoy dancing and a result of which I'd recently joined a new hip hop dance group. I'd had to pass auditions to get in and so wanted to work hard to prove myself. But having joined this new dance group I thought it was normal to experiencing extreme thirst, going to the toilet frequently as a result, being so tired I could barely lift my feet up and losing weight- I thought because of all of the exercise. Little did I know this was my diabetes taking effect.

When I was in school I was very fortunate, I always enjoyed P.E and I had a great group of teachers that encouraged me and pushed me forward opposed to holding me back. They never said that I couldn't go anywhere or do anything just like the other children. I went on out of bounds holidays, day trips away and went and did athletics races outside of school and this set me on my athletics course towards taking sprinting seriously. It was at this point I noticed how good my blood sugars became when I did sport too.

But it was also sport that made me thick skinned. When I was in adolescent clinic my consultant at the time asked if I really needed to do sport. As it meant that having the same amount of insulin for my injections didn't work the same way everyday because on the days that I did sport, I became more insulin sensitive. I didn't even need to draw breath before answering that yes I needed to do sport and this would be what I continued to do, because diabetes was a part, not my whole life.

Although doing sport has given me podium highs, it's given me lows as well, especially in terms of blood sugars. But I wouldn't change it for the world, competing in my events the 100m and 200m sprints for my country have been amongst my proudest moments and when life has gotten tough in other areas. Sport has been my strength, my power and at my core having taught me things such as determination to succeed, drive and motivation to work hard against the odds and the tools to make my diabetes work for me.