On Saturday 5th March 2022 I will reach 50 years of living with type 1 diabetes. Spending this last year reflecting on the highs and lows caused by the condition has been surprisingly cathartic.

With 4 weeks to go, I look at the wonderful type 1 community. There were minimal opportunities for contact with others in the 1970s and 1980s but since attending a JDRF Discovery Day in 2014, there has been no looking back.

With 8 weeks to go, I look at the healthcare support I have received over the last fifty years and some of the pros and cons in negotiating the healthcare system.

With 12 weeks to go, I have looked at the impact that my diagnosis had on family whilst growing up in the 70s and 80s and the impact on my own family, now that I have children of my own.

With 16 weeks to go, I consider many of the challenges that can cause emotional difficulties when living with the condition. As awareness increases of the importance of celebrating the successes and improving access to the tools to help manage the condition, I hope the emotional burden will start to ease.

With 20 weeks to go, I look at the impact type 1 had on me in the classroom in the 70s, how the stress of exam taking in the 80s could affect my type 1 and then my concerns surrounding disclosure of the condition to colleagues in the workplace.

With 24 weeks to go I consider the risks associated with out of range blood glucose levels and remember the particular difficulties in avoiding hypos and hypers with the unsophisticated monitoring and methods of insulin delivery in the early years.

With 28 weeks to go, I look at the difficulties of managing exercise with type 1, from the early years when monitoring was incapable of helping you understand the physical impact, to now, when so much more is known about the impact but due to the nature of the condition, management of blood glucose levels remains challenging.

With 32 weeks to go, I look at the challenges that type 1 has caused with my relationship to food. At diagnosis in the 1970s, I was on a fixed amount of carbohydrate at set times of the day to match insulin injected. Choice was removed from this equation.

With 36 weeks to go, I look at the monitoring I have used to manage the condition from early urine testing, to blood glucose testing, continuous glucose monitoring (CGM) and more recent research studies trialling alternatives to existing CGM devices.

With 40 weeks to go, I look at how insulin has been administered and the specific issues I have had with managing injections and access to injection technology.

As I approach 50 years of living with type 1 diabetes, I look forward to the recognition that Diabetes UK place on reaching this milestone by the awarding of the Alan Nabarro medal. I am marking the countdown to this milestone by writing a blog every four weeks, looking at a different aspect of living with this condition and the advances that have been made in care. For anyone interested, I hope that you will enjoy sharing this journey to 50 years with me.