A lot has changed in 50 years when it comes to treating diabetes and Ann Morris has seen it all.
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At 76, the diabetes educator is stepping back from direct patient care but that doesn't mean she is actually fully retiring.
It's something she tried once before but it didn't last.
"I don't know what the R word really looks like," Mrs Morris said. "It's been the most wonderful career I could have ever have imagined."
It was while working at the Royal Children's Hospital in 1976 she found herself randomly rostered on to the diabetes ward.
It was the start of an award-winning career in diabetes education that has spanned five decades but it wasn't something she set out to do.
Mrs Morris first trained to be a nurse at the Royal Melbourne Hospital in 1968, and after doing a bit of work at the former Queen Victoria Hospital she moved to the children's hospital.
In those days, almost all the patients with complex diabetes in the southern hemisphere would come to Melbourne which was the largest children's hospital at the time.
"We used to teach families how to give insulin using glass syringes which you'd boil up and then store in a methylated spirits case," Mrs Morris said.
"They had to do that every day. It was a big deal."
The needles were also reusable and had to be resharpened as well.
And instead of blood glucose testing in the early days, it was urine testing - something that had to be done a couple of times a day.
Mrs Morris, from Warrnambool in south west Victoria, said people would be "horrified" at the numbers they used to keep patients' levels at.
"We didn't realise. You didn't have blood glucose monitoring in those days," she said.
Patients were also put on portion diets but the amounts differed from state to state.
"In Victoria, we had 10-gram portions. That was a slice of bread with the crusts cut off. It was 210ml of milk. All these ridiculous measurements," Mrs Morris said.
"It was all these really difficult, complex things to have to do and it just made managing it so much more demanding for families."
Mrs Morris said there had been a lot of advances in medications and technology in recent years to manage and treat the condition.
"It's incredible," she said. "I never thought I'd see it in my lifetime really."
Diabetes hit home for educator
Dealing with diabetes was not just something that consumed her work days.
When she moved to Warrnambool in 1984, she met and later married Colin Morris who has been diagnosed with type 1 diabetes when he was 18.
"He had it for 65 years. He worked hard to self manage it. I supported him through it," she said.
Mrs Morris tried to retire in 2019 but when her colleague went on maternity leave she ended up going back to work.
"I never really stopped until now," she said.
Although she has been doing some casual tutoring at Deakin University medical school, and has just co-authored a new chapter in the second edition of a book called The Art and Science of Diabetes Education.
"That's been a really lovely thing to do as a legacy," she said.
Career path that leads to Warrnambool
After working in the diabetes ward at the Royal Children's Hospital, Mrs Morris went to work for the Diabetes Foundation of Victoria where she would travel around the state educating people.
She was part of a group that was formed to lobby for diabetes educators to be recognised in their own right as a profession.
Mrs Morris was a founding member of the Diabetes Educators Association in 1981, and became its first vice-president.
In Warrnambool she first worked at the base hospital, then at St John of God Hospital.
In 2011, she moved to Warrnambool Medical Clinic - now Lyndoch Medical Hub - where she has run her own practice, a job she described as the most rewarding of career.
Mrs Morris has also received two awards for her work from the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation, something she said was humbling after being nominated by families she has helped.
New research is changing diabetes diagnosis
Diabetes cases are on the rise. Mrs Morris said that for a long time, the south-west region has had one of the highest prevalences of type 1 diabetes in the country.
"I don't know why," she said.
But Mrs Morris said the medical profession was also looking more proactively for diabetes in people as they age.
"We also understand a lot more," she said.
Outside helping people manage diabetes, Mrs Morris is still the president of 3WAY FM radio station where she also hosts a program.
She is also a grant assessor, and has been on the advisory committee for the Community Broadcasting Foundation
