A couple of weeks ago, I spent a very uncomfortable hour talking to someone who was telling me that the very idea of sending any sort of health aid to another country was horrendous because the situation here in Australia is so dire. They went on to say that the refused to support programs helping people in other countries access insulin and diabetes supplies because that was the responsibility of the government of that country.

I’ve thought about the conversation a lot. And then today, on my TimeHop app, this post from last year came up. I wish I had  remembered these words then because I sat there mute after trying to explain why it’s important that we help others who are not as fortunate as we are here in Australia and being cut off and told I didn’t know what I was talking about. I decided that there was simply no point in trying to argue.

So today, I thought I’d share the post. Remembering to look outside our own bubble is always important, And today -especially today – it seems even more critical.

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I speak a lot about the challenges of living with diabetes. Sometimes, the challenges don’t directly relate to me, but I can still see and understand that the diabetes experience is different to anyone and one person’s easy-peasy-lemon-squeezy is another person’s anxiety- and stress-inducing concern.

One of the things that perplexes and annoys me is people who are unable to see diabetes outside of their own bubble. Frequently these people fail to see that just because they don’t need information about <insert topic here> that doesn’t mean everyone has access to or an understanding of it.

Sometimes, when I was involved in running an activity or speaking about a topic at an event, people say that they have never had any problems with that, so why would we speak about it – completely ignoring the fact that for lots of people living with diabetes this is an issue that is of concern.

I ‘work in diabetes’ (which sounds ridiculous, but you know what I mean) and the last person’s diabetes that gets considered when I am at work and thinking of developing programs is my own. If I thought, for one minute, that my experience of living with diabetes mirrors most others, then I’d be utterly naïve and not doing my job. That’s why working and engaging with, and listening to as wide a range of people affected by diabetes as possible is critical to delivering services that are of use.

(Because, let’s be honest, if it really were all about me, I’d spend lots of time and effort working with the leather crafters at Hermes to help me design a perfect diabetes bag. Because: shallow. And lots of stuff.)

And you know if you just rolled your eyes at that last comment because you have found (or designed) the perfect bag and think it is waste of time to speak about it because it doesn’t affect you, then a) stop it, and b) can you tell me where to get one? Thanks.

With World Diabetes Day next week, it’s a great time to think about how others deal with diabetes, what they know, what they don’t, what their concerns may be.

If I only cared about what was going on in my diabetes bubble, I wouldn’t write so much about campaigns like #Insulin4All. You can read all about the campaign here, and my post about it during the lead up to 2014’s WDD.

I have never had trouble accessing insulin. But that doesn’t mean that I don’t care about those who do.