One of our main motivations for completing our Ironman is to support our colleagues in Christchurch, so it was important for us to find out a bit about what was actually going on at a day-to-day level for them. Back in April this year Kate and myself sat spellbound with hundreds of others at the NZSSD (New Zealand Society for the Study of Diabetes) conference as a team from the Christchurch Diabetes Service and their partner organisation Diabetes Christchurch showed a series of pictures and described the impact of a disaster of an unprecedented scale on the city of Christchurch. 
They made it very real to us how staff who didn't know what was happening with their own lives and families, some having massive damage to own homes, still pulled together and kept going for each other and their patients and amazingly remained optimistic and positive. Kit Hoeben, the Diabetes Centre Manager kindly provided us with some information he and his team had put together to share with you, please read about some of their experiences in links from this post. Lupesiliva Tuulua (Pacific Island Diabetes Nurse Educator) describes her experiences and those of her patients, reflecting on the value of the written stories emerging from the trauma. Marianne Wilson (Nurse Specialist in the Diabetes Service) describes in detail the impact at the actual time of the February 2011 earthquake, and published in the Autumn edition of the newsletter of the NZSSD, Newsweet, there is also an amazing distillation of the lessons learned when you go to work as you normally do and learn that among other things, you cant walk home after a natural disaster in high heels. This is well worth reading, it contains lessons you just wouldn't even consider.
So at some point in the future we will have a link setup to an online fundraising site, with the intention of asking for financial support for our colleagues in Christchurch and their patients. Discussions will occur at a later stage around what the Christchurch team are going to specifically spend this money on (and it will depend too on how much is raised!), right now their priorities are changing and they need a little time to think about what is going to make the most difference to them at that time.In the meantime, our thoughts are with them as they do an amazing job, getting their own lives back in order while the aftershocks still continue, with winter upon them, and getting on with looking after people with diabetes in Canterbury.
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