Well it’s here…….NOVEMBER. The ‘holiday season’ for people with diabetes. Diabetes awareness month, world diabetes day, blue, blue, blue……….right?
Really?
I have watched this month pass for the better part of twenty-one years now and please excuse me if I don’t get too excited. Don’t get me wrong, I love the Big Blue Test that the Diabetes Hands Foundation organizes and YOU SHOULD ALL TAKE PART; and I know many organizations do many things to recognize the day/month but in our house; but we do not need a special month to be reminded of anything.
I would say that if these diabetes efforts, concentrated in November each year, crossed-over to the public consciousness; well that would be worth the effort. But if what we do each year reaches out to……well…….just ourselves in the diabetes community; if it’s all the same to everyone else—I don’t need a reminder.
I’m not being negative here, I am stating that if someone, not in the diabetes community, can cause such a buzz reaction within our own diabetes community (remember Paula Deen) why cannot the diabetes community create something to cause a positive spin-buzz (I just made that word up) in the health community/general public-at-large? Otherwise, what are we doing during November each year?
My point—-you have one point to make. One message to get to all those who do not have/understand/know/feel diabetes…….what is the message you deliver? How do you deliver it? So here is the challenge——share the one message (yes, only one) that you would want to get out there during this month? What do we want OTHERS to know?
Let us know………perhaps by the end of this month we can make it a spin-buzz to the outside world and create a November to remember.
I am a diabetes dad
Please visit my Diabetes Dad FB Page and hit ‘like’.
7 replies on “It’s Diabetes Awareness Month; So….uhm….uh….Yeah?”
The end of this month, on Nov 30th, we’ll mark our one year di-anniversary. We noticed in early July on our vacation that he was drinking more, in our hotel room we noticed that he was getting up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom, we noticed the upset stomach and the vomitting but we ignored it. Hadn’t he done that before? Maybe it was just some bad restaurant food he had eaten. Thankfully we got him to the Doctor just before he went into DKA.
This past year on my FB wall I posted a lot about T1D symptoms, the ones we had missed, believing all along that my posts were falling on deaf ears. No one outside of the T1D ever liked or commented on my posts about T1D.
This week a family member called me, concerned about her child. We don’t know yet if it is T1D but because I have posted the T1D symptoms this mom did not dismiss her child’s new bedwetting as just an accident. She found elevated BG and is getting blood work done, it might just be a UTI and we’re praying it is that and not T1D. This also gave me hope that maybe my posts about T1D and being aware of its symptoms has not and will not fall on deaf ears.
The cure for Type 1 Diabetes is needed before another person is lost from this disease!
I don’t think the intent is to be reminded.. I think the intent is to raise awareness. I am all for it!
T1D is an invisible disease. Even though we look happy & healthy on the outside, inside we are fighting a battle. All day. Every day. FOREVER.
It IS SERIOUS, even though you can’t see it!
And you CAN help! By giving us your understanding and support. We NEED more people to join us in our hope for a cure!
T1D is an invisible disease. Even though we look happy & healthy on the outside, inside we are fighting a battle. All day. Every day. FOREVER.
It IS SERIOUS, even though you can’t see it!
And you CAN help! By giving us your understanding and support. We NEED more people to join us in our hope for a cure!
There are so many voices and no clear message during the month. Sadly in many cases the mainstream media gets hold of the “diabesity epidemic” as it makes for a good headline that our health system is to be swamped in the tsunami of “diabetes” and the type 1 message is completely lost and all that happens is diabetes and diabetics are further stigmatised and even villified. I’m a big believer in the power of each of us to advocate and educate those around us and this is magnified by social media, if we all did this every day (yes I know it can be exhausting) that would make more difference than media ads and turning landmarks blue.
Thank you for your words.