Year 26 Starts Today…..Some Tips We Learned Along the Diabetes Roller Coaster Roadway

Now listen carefully if you have been at this ‘diabetes thing’ for a few years and you are ‘losing your grip’.  Hang in there.

Today marks the beginning of year 26 since Kaitlyn was diagnosed in 1992 at the age of 2, with this monster called diabetes.  But take heart…..we have learned a ton and here are just a few morsels of education.

1. Education is the equalizer in diabetes.  Nothing levels the playing field like knowing as much as you can.
2. Don’t do nothing.  Every diabetes organization/movement/action is only as good as the people inside the organizations.  If we do not do for our own…..who will?
3. You will meet the most incredible people on earth in this journey, who are in the same battle as you.  Seek them out…..they are beyond amazing, inspiring, and dedicated.
4. Hang out with people who are smarter than you about diabetes……I spend/spent my life doing this.
5. It’s not all about one organization or one…..well anything…..do not be afraid to help/be-involved with more than one……open your mind.  Never stay with some place because it’s merely convenient.
6. Open your mind and ask a million questions because the smartest people you THINK are so smart……may not be as smart as they want you to think. (think about it)
7. If diabetes is the most important thing in your child’s life……….diabetes will be the most important thing in your child’s life………I always believed living life was the most important aspect of life itself.
8. Don’t ask……’if’ they can do something…….figure out a way ‘how’ to allow them to do something.  They should be limited by……….nothing.
9. If you hang around with naysayers…….you become one.
10. If you give up hope……..you are doomed. (if people say you should not think a certain way, see #6).
11. Blood glucose numbers are a gauge not a report card.  Learn, adjust, move forward.
12. Kids with diabetes are still kids……..never forget that.
13. Your kids without diabetes should not come in second in everything moving forward.  DO not just EXPECT them to ALWAYS understand (see #12). You’ll figure it out…..but only if you want to,
14. Glucose numbers are not as important as showing your child love.  And no matter how many hours you are awake, or the amount of tears you shed; if your child has T1D and you do not you do not know what it is like (and in fair response….and your kids will not know what it is like to be a parent either).
15. If someone is active in an organization that you do not agree with, do not look at as they are wrong and you are right, look at it as they are in the minority of people who ARE DOING something in the diabetes world…………and respect them for it.
16. If you think you know all there is to know about diabetes…….your stupid.
17. Do not waste energy on ignorance but also remember that you did not know until you had to either.
18. Remember how important your medical professionals are and that social media input does not always know the best way.
19.  Social media is an incredible highway of information.  Harness it, but never forget that ‘the someone’ giving you information can be as anonymous as they want.
20. Life is life.  We all have life dealt to us. We also are invited by life to live it.   Look for all of the most exciting things that life has to offer, and it offers so much. Take it one day at a time and let no one, nor one thing, stop you and your child from living it.

Dreams do not start when you go to bed, they start each morning when you start living them.

I am a DiabetesDad.
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