It was an amazing week. I presented my Award Lecture the first day of the conference and presented with my husband about how we manage diabetes together the last day.

My Award Lecture was on a Flourishing Treatment Approach which I believe can take people with diabetes further than our current Coping Treatment Approach. Thanks to the IDF, the video of my presentation will be online this month or next. I will be sure to post it. For now, I can point you to a very short write up already in the Endocrinology Advisor. The hour presentation was multi-faceted so this is just to whet your appetite.

I cannot thank the International Diabetes Federation enough for giving me a world stage to share the work I’ve been doing in diabetes. The work that is closest to my heart – helping people with diabetes flourish and helping HCPs work with people who have diabetes in a way that helps them flourish. The fact that more than 200 people attended my Award Lecture and received it so enthusiastically makes my heart full.

The husband and I presented twice on how my diabetes helps our relationship grow. The first time for the conference participants – more than 8,000 scientists, researchers, clinicians and health care providers – and the second time for people with diabetes and loved ones.

For us, my having diabetes and how we live with it, has only made our relationship closer and stronger. Again, it is a positive position few really expect, but we have made my diabetes, ours. In doing so we have, and continue to, create ways that make it easier for me to manage diabetes and help the husband get more sleep, worry less and have a valued role in my diabetes.

I am indebted to all the support we had throughout the week and to all the wonderful new people I met at the conference with whom I now feel a special bond. My only complaint is with whoever arranged the weather. Rain, rain, rain and more rain!