The Duke of Edinburgh

A couple of months ago at school we had a assembly about The Duke of Edinburgh bronze award. The Duke of Edinburgh bronze award is an award which is given for completing a programme of activities that can be under taken by anyone aged 14 to 24. We got told you picked a skill, physical and volunteering activity that you would have to do for 3 months or 6 months. We also got told that we would have to do a expedition where we would have to plan a walk from the bus to the campsite and then we would camp for one night and then we would have to plan a walk back to the bus, each walk hade to be 7-10 miles long. We also got told we would have basic training on how to cook on a trangia, first aid and how to set up a tent. I really wanted to do it!

While I was sitting in the assembly I was thinking how fun it would be if I was able to go, I would have so much fun with my friends. However I didn't think I was going to be able to go because of my diabetes. At the end of the assembly I picked up a letter about it to give to my mum. I hoped she would let me do the Duke of Edinburgh bronze award. When I got home I should my mum the letter and told her how much I want to do it. She told me it was going to be a lot of work, I told her that I didn't care it was going to be loads of fun. So my mum filled out the form and said I was allowed to do it.

The next step was to choose what skill, physical and volunteering activity I wanted to do. For my skill activity I choose to make a patchwork blanket for 3 months, for my physical activity I choose to do Pilates for 3 months and for my volunteering activity I choose to help out at football training for 6 months. Next in my group we had to plan a practise expedition so that we could learn  all the skills and work out what we would need to take on the real expedition. It was all going really well and my diabetes hadn't stopped me from doing anything everyone else was doing.

However when it came to the real expedition there was a problem. I couldn't change my line to my pump myself, so the hospital wouldn't let me go. If you read my post called Changing my line, you will find out how I changed my line myself for the first time, so the hospital let me go on the expedition at Grafham water.

The expedition at Grafham water was so funny, I had so much fun with all of my friends. On the first day we were meant to walk 8 miles but we got really lost and ended up having to ring one of the teachers and they tried to find us. The teacher asked us what was around us, the funny thing was all that we could see around us was trees and fields so the teachers had no idea where we were. Luckily the teachers found us and then we carried on walking to the camp. When we eventually got to the camp we worked out that it had taken us over 9 hours to walk 8 miles. It took us so long because we had got lost so many times. All the other groups had cooked dinner, put their tents up and had a shower by the time we got to the camp. One the second day we walked 7 miles and we didn't get lost once. We had a much better days walk on the second day, this was because everyone was looking at a map and we had better maps then on the first day.  It took us about 4 hours to walk 7 miles on the second day. Overall we had a really fun time and I will never forget it. The best thing about the whole expedition was my levels didn't go low once while we were there, even with all of the walking. I didn't go low because I checked my levels every hour and I put a temp basal on my pump of 70% the whole expedition. My diabetes didn't stop me from doing the expedition and I would recommend people to do it because I felt so proud after I had completed the expedition and it was loads of fun!

Just because you are diabetic doesn't mean you can't go on trips like the Duke of Edinburgh expedition. You can do everything other people can do.