Diabetes Platform?……..It Should not be Reserved ONLY for Miss America

I had this thought (that surprise you?).  For the last few months I have watched as Sierra Sandison, Miss Idaho, Miss America-top-online-vote-getter; as she shouted from the mountain tops about having diabetes while she competed for the Miss America crown.  Took a lot of guts to do that, didn’t it?

Not easy to go out there and say, I wear an insulin pump.  It became a big deal to our community.  Our kids became inspired.  Our kids, in some instances felt….well…less different.  Diabetes in the national spotlight was such a bold move.  We all saw it and thought how wonderful.

Now take it to your living room.   If the media made such a big deal about Sierra having diabetes and wearing the pump, and ‘showing the world’; know that your child does this same thing every single day.

But without the fanfare.

If we thought it was such a big deal that someone would take ‘this diabetes thing’ to a level of showing the world……think, for just a second, what they go through everyday showing the world…..that it is okay.  They make it okay.

Yes it’s brave to go out there like Sierra did, we all said it, we all came together and voted for her to prove the point.  We as a community voted her into being a finalist.  We voted.  But yet, our kids do it every single day, don’t they?  They ‘go out there’.  They get little for their efforts, they are just being a kid.  They put it out there every day.

Don’t let a person in the limelight be the only ‘thunder’ your child with diabetes hears.  In between the million questions of ‘what was your number’, ‘write your number down’, and being the diabetes police we are every day……remember they do what Sierra does every day also.  They just do it without the possibility of winning a crown.

What Sierra did was terrific………what all people with diabetes do every day…..is no less than heroic.

Let them know.  Give them your vote……every day.

I am a diabetes dad.

Please visit my Diabetes Dad FB Page and hit ‘like’.