About us

This website will be a lot of different things over the next few years but it will always be with the aim of shutting down. As soon as we get a cure for diabetes!

*** Update October 2018***
When I first wrote that opening paragraph, people were saying there will be a cure within ten years! Well, over eight years later, and the cure is a long way off! Despite the challenges of controlling his own blood sugars, Samuel got 12 GCSE’s (inc 6 A*’s) and 4 A Levels (AAAA) and he is now an adult, studying at Southampton Universiry. He is daily proof that Type 1 Diabetes should not hold you back. Which is good advice that I am taking myself with regards to this website. No more dwelling on all things pancreatic, but to make sure the page stays updated and vibrant, I am switching this over to things more relevant to the day to day happenings in our household.

This will mostly make it a journal of all things #Disney and #Foodporn. Much of this appears on the normal Social Media channels (Youtube, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram) so this page will become the central library for all those things, all in one place.

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My son Samuel was diagnosed as Type 1 Diabetic on July 7th 2010 – not one of our better days, let me tell you.

In the days that followed Samuel, my wife and I felt a lot of different emotions. There was shock at the original diagnosis. He had been ill for a while and so there was relief that we could pin it on something. There was confusion as we struggled to get to grips with the condition and all the different things we needed to learn about, to manage it. Samuel was really brave at first, almost blasé about it, but in the weeks that followed his anxiety over needles increased.

For me, I’m slightly ashamed to say, my overriding emotion was anger. I was cross – I felt like someone had poisoned my son. I wanted someone to blame, and of course there isn’t anyone. A typical male response, possibly. I am a bit of a control freak and in my day to day job, I’m used to sorting problems. This was one problem I couldn’t sort.

So to a certain extent, that’s what this site is. Type 1 Diabetes is a BIG problem, getting bigger and one I hope to have some small part in sorting.

The site is called CureSam after my son but Samuel is just one of approx. 300,000 Type 1 Diabetics in the UK. If we can cure him, obviously we are curing everyone. So he will be part symbol, part mascot, part metaphor.

By raising funds, sharing experiences, promoting the positives, removing myths and increasing awareness, I hope that this site will go some way to Curing Sam.

More specifically, I will be raising funds by taking part and blogging about all things cycling (and occasionally triathlon) related. If you visit this site and like it, please come back. Tell your friends to check it out. Link to it.

I’ve had a bike for as long as I can remember, but can’t remember a time that I have spent more time biking than now. I hit 40 in 2011, but every time I get on my bike, I still get that little rush I got when I was a child. It’s like freedom. The smallest sense that anything and anywhere is possible. Factoring in the health benefits (more important than ever as middle age approaches!!!) and the environmental upside too, it’s not hard to see why cycling is proving more popular than ever.

By discussing all these things here, I hope that mine and my families experiences can help cure diabetes.