It is with a strange mix of excitement, trepidation, sadness and expectation that I can finally tell you guys that I am moving to Montreal in exactly 8 weeks today!

It has been a long time in our dreams and  a good time in planning but as of last week, I have resigned from the job I love and on August 3rd, I will say goodbye to a good many friends, family, colleagues and the country I love for what is already promising to be an incredible adventure.

We have tickets, insurance, hostels, backpacks, itineraries, bus transfers, hotels, activities and visas all done as well as a long list of paperwork for taxes and all that guff well underway. All that is left now really is going to be to sell our car (let me know if you’re in the market for a wonderful 1987 Toyota Corrolla!), get rid of a few books to a loving library and put everything else that we want to keep into boxes for indefinite storage.

Of course, everything I just listed is what anyone does if they are going overseas for their OE and there is nothing too different in that regard when it comes to us BUT, of course, my diabetes is also coming along on this little adventure and that is going to make for a little extra planning.

Some of the things that I have flying around in my head include:

• How am I going to get insulin – I don’t qualify for healthcare!!!!!!!!
• How can I get BG strips?!?!
• How much insulin can I take with me without getting jailed!?!?
• How easy will it be living in French when it’s not my first language (what with Montreal being over 90% French speaking)
• What happens if I get sick
• How will I manage travelling over the new timezones
• Will I still get support for my insulin pump up there?
• How much are pump consumables?

Luckily, I’ve been fortunate to have travelled a lot so I’ve got some experience in that department (I once crossed 7 time zones in 4 days by train across Russia, Mongolia and China) so I think I could cope with that (even if I coped badly!) but there is so much I still don’t know.

TuDiabetes has been somewhat of a god send for me with it’s massive community of incredibly magnanimous people ready to give advice at the drop of a hat  (it even has a group of diabetics in Quebec) but there are so, so many questions still!

The snapshot on the right is one of a typical Montreal street scene in January when the average air temperature is a cool -20 degrees so I had better get used to the cold pretty quickly! How will this effect my BGs though and what about the insulin? At least we arrive in the height of summer so I have some time to prepare and get some local advise.

So along with the goodbyes, the packing, the excitement and the paperwork my little mind is going to be going into overdrive trying to factor in all the little things that are doing just for my diabetes – the unwelcome companion.

At this stage we’re only going for a year because that is what the visa allows us so you never know, we might be back in no time but I wouldn’t be surprised if this is just the start of the adventure!

Naturally, I’ll be blogging as much as I can about it all along the way and will look forward to still being able to talk to all of you. In the meantime though, if you are from Canada, have been there or have emigrated from one country to another as a diabetic and can offer me some hints and tips I’m all ears!

- Aaron