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A couple of weeks ago now, I was incredibly fortunate to win a scholarship to attend the Mayo Clinic’s Healthcare and Social Media Summit in Melbourne. I’m a little slow in getting anything out about it, because…well because November. But November is over! And finally, the first of the few posts I’ve started is here and the others are coming. #Tardy
Five scholarships were offered for consumers to attend, and I was encouraged to apply. So, I diligently filled in my application, hitting ‘submit’ moments before the deadline. (Not to self – always have an up-to-date bio available!) And then, the week before the conference, I squealed aloud in a meeting when I received the email, letting me know my application was successful.
The scholarship recipients. (Click photo for source.)
Before the event even started, there was online chatter about making sure the consumer reps in the room connected. Which we did! Before and throughout the conference, calls to ‘find your tribe’ resonated, and I certainly felt I had found mine! It was an absolute delight to meet and an honour to wave the consumer flag alongside Carly, Mel, Liat and Belinda.
And others in the tribe made me realise just how high the bar is set! Lisa Ramshaw, event organiser, is a force of nature. There is no other word for her enthusiasm and dedication to healthcare social media. I suspect Melissa Cadzow has #patientsincluded tattooed on her body somewhere so great is her commitment to the inclusion of consumers in all activities that affect us!
Kim giving her talk
And of course, the five-minute presentation in the innovation showcase from Kim Henshaw about OzDOC presented another strong consumer voice to the event. Kim spoke about how healthcare professionals use the weekly tweetchat as a platform to learn and engage with consumers. Kim did the OzDOC community proud with her talk, using her time to accurately crystalise the very essence of the power and influence of an online network.
It’s these people that are the reason I love these sorts of conferences – and their like-minded attitude, and endless promotion of the importance of the consumer voice and the value of using social to connect, inform and support. This is mostly a huge positive, but it does get me thinking that the people who should also be in the room probably aren’t. Organisation CEOs need to be better represented to be taken on the journey of why HCSM cannot be dismissed as ‘the way of the future, so we’ll get to it soon’, but rather ‘It’s here. We need to Do.It.Now.’ This would inform a true real top down / bottom up approach to embracing healthcare social media within their organisations.
The diabetes contingent: Me, Kim and Mel
The underlying message of the conference – at least for me – was reinforcement of something that I have known and promoted for a long time: health social networks bring people together. Before online social platforms, we did it face-to-face. The message of the ‘modern day kitchen table’ was brought home to me again and again and again, and I understood that the barriers to using social are absolutely not insurmountable – despite feeling that way at times with all the justifying we seem to have to do.
And the message of ‘Connected communities get more done’, rang so true. I thought to the first morning of the conference when I was late because I’d been moderating an hour of the 24 hour World Diabetes Day tweetchat, talking diabetes stigma with people from all over the world, affected by diabetes. I thought to the Spare a Rose; Save a Child campaign. I thought about #DSMA and #DeDOC and #OzDOC and all the ways that our own diabetes community connects to get things done.
My conference fees for the two days of the #MayoInOz conference were covered through the consumer scholarship program. I was not expected to write anything in exchange for the scholarship. Thank you to the organisers of the event, Consumer Health Forum Australia and Melissa Cadzow for the scholarship. You can read more about the conference by clicking on this link for tweets.
I’m reading a fabulous book at the moment. It’s called In Other Words, written by one of my favourite writers, Jhumpa Lahiri. My sister introduced me to her writings a couple of years ago, and I have read most of what she has written now.
The backstory to the book is quite lovely: the writer wanted to learn Italian – really learn Italian – and after years of study, moved her family to Rome. While there, she started writing only in Italian, retraining her brain to speak and think in Italian first.
The book is presented in both Italian and English. When the book is open, the left-hand page is in the original Italian and the right-hand side is in the translated English. As someone with basic Italian, I’ve been enjoying reading the Italian words, saying some of them out loud to feel them roll around on my tongue.
I start by reading the Italian side and work my way through, understanding as much as I can. What I find is that I get the general gist of what is going on, but there are gaps. The detail is completely lost at times, but I am able to piece the story together and understand what is going on. When I read the translation, all the gaps are filled in, the detail is there – adjectives provide description and narrative and help round out the story.
I cover up the English page so that I can only read the Italian, but try as I might – as I rack my brain to remember what a word means – there ends up being a lot missing from the story. But there is the safety net of being able to remove the paper hiding the translation when I simply can’t work out the holes in the story, resulting in a satisfying – and full – understanding of the beautiful story.
Yesterday, I spent the whole day feeling like I was living in the Italian side of my book. I trudged through, with a general idea of what had happened overnight, but there was a lot missing. I’d had a hypo in the middle of the night – a terrible, terrible low. I can’t really say much more because I don’t know what happened. Parts of it are really clear, but a lot of the particulars are completely missing.
Aaron has filled in some of the gaps – how he knew I was low from the way I was moving around in my sleep; how he managed to get me to drink some juice, and then some more before I was fully able to understand him and the situation; how when he reached out to me I was drenched in sweat.
I’ve filled in the gap of the no sensor alarm – problems with the Dexcom app at the moment meant that when I grabbed my phone, angry that we had both missed the alarms, I was greeted with the message ‘Transmitter not found’. That explained why I’d not been alerted to the impending low, allowing me to treat before things turned nasty.
Because of the app problems, there is no data showing how long I’d been low, or the trajectory of my glucose levels. I know that I was sitting in range when I went to bed, and had been for some time. But that was at 10.30pm and this was three hours later. A lot can happen in three hours.
My bedside table was littered with three empty juice boxes and a couple of other wrappers in the morning, letting me know exactly what was consumed until I felt safe again.
I have a pain in my ribs. When I stood up and felt the painful twinge, I thought perhaps I’d had a seizure during the hypo, but Aaron was able to assure me that didn’t happen. The reason for the pain is a mystery, but I know it wasn’t there when I went to bed, yet was when I stood up to change out of my sweat-soaked t-shirt.
I’ve spent the last couple of days trying to piece together what I do know as I endeavour to search for the missing parts of the story. I close my eyes, desperately searching in my mind for a little hint as to what happened before Aaron realised I was low and sprang into action. Or the way I moved that now means it hurts when I breathe. I wish I could pull away a curtain – or piece of paper – and that would expose the full story.
But there is no safety net here. All I have is what I can remember and what Aaron has been able to tell me. The gaps cannot be filled in; the detail is completely lost. I feel incredibly unsatisfied, and the uncertainty also means that I am feeling very vulnerable and exposed. If I don’t have the full story, how do I understand it all?
And how can I possibly stop it from happening again?
Today, I gave a talk to healthcare professionals at a hospital in outer Melbourne. I was invited months ago after the organisers heard me speak at another event, and they wanted me to speak about living with diabetes.
As I said in the introduction to my talk, I am dead boring. Plus, I am only one voice. So, to create some balance and some interest, I reached out through Facebook and asked this:
As usual, the online community didn’t disappoint. I had over forty responses and weaved them into my presentation, adding real impact to what I was saying, reinforcing my comments with the comments of others walking a similar path of life with diabetes.
I started by asking the audience a question…
And then I said that I would be talking about life with diabetes. Except, I reminded the audience that life with diabetes was very different depending on where in the world you were diagnosed and that my story is about my ‘first world diabetes’ and I checked my privilege almost as a disclaimer.
I used that point in my talk as an opportunity to speak about those who cannot access or afford insulin and how this is simply, not okay. I could sense the surprise in the room as I said that people are dying because of lack of access.
Then I spoke about what diabetes is to me and here is what I said:
It’s boring and tedious and frustrating.
It’s made me an expert. And that we need our HCPs to acknowledge the hours and hours and effort we put into managing our own brand of diabetes and the expertise we develop from living so closely with this condition.
It’s about humour – because laughing is a tool I use to get through this and that’s okay.
It’s about words, because language matters and sticks with us forever.
It’s about stigma. I asked if they could think of another condition that was so stigmatised and surrounded by blame – and that while we experience it with type 1 diabetes, I said that I believed my brothers and sisters with type 2 diabetes have it so much worse.
It’s invisible – despite the bright blue patch surrounding my Dexcom, most of the time it is hidden away and not on show for all to see.
It’s about people and community and the DOC and the people that are like the air I breathe – without whom I would not be managing at all.
It’s about my family. And then I explained, fighting back tears, that this is the hardest part of life with diabetes for me. I’ve written about it a lot, spoken about it often. But thinking about how diabetes impacts on Aaron and the kidlet breaks – absolutely shatters – my heart into pieces. The worry I cause my parents makes me feel guilty and resentful. And every day I regret the time I told my sister that my life expectancy had been cut thanks to my type 1 diagnosis because I will never forget the look in her eyes indicating the pain I had just caused her.
I answered a couple of questions and then my talk was done. I thanked the audience for listening, stepped down from the stage, took a deep breath. Someone came up to me as I was gathering my bags and said that she learnt more about real life with diabetes in that talk than in all her years nursing.
This is the power of story telling. The comments I read out and shared have so much power in them. We need to keep telling our stories, turning the way we talk about diabetes on its head. It’s not about the numbers, the tools or anything else. It is about people.
Thank you so much to everyone who shared their comments with me on my Facebook post yesterday and today.
What a week. World Diabetes Day (WDD) is over for another year, but there is still lots going on in the diabetes space and in my life in general. Here are just some of the things making my brain a minestrone soup of dot points.
Mayo Clinic in Oz
I was lucky enough to win a scholarship to attend the Healthcare and Social Media Summit run by the Mayo Clinic earlier this week. I haven’t even started to pick apart all the amazing things I learnt during those two days, but there will be more to come soon.
Crown
Downtime is bloody hard to come by these days (because: November). BUT!!!! Binge watching a new show helps with some mindless entertainment and winding down at the end of the day. And Netflix has come to the rescue with The Crown. I admit that this is just a space filler until the REAL EVENT…But in the meantime, it will do and is actually super enjoyable.
Talking diabetes without being rude
We often see ‘Things to not say’ lists. I wrote one here where I suggested the only thing to say to someone living with diabetes was to offer them a Nutella cupcake.
I still stand by that advice, however thought I’d use WDD as an opportunity to write a more comprehensive list and it was published on the Mamamia Women’s Network. You can read it here – and may want to consider sharing it widely.
One of the things that we need to aim for is talk diabetes OUTSIDE our diabetes world. This article was not written for people affected by diabetes – we already know to not say most of these things. It is for those who say the annoying things because they don’t really understand diabetes.
So – have a read. And then share it around. And add your own ideas in the comments section on the Mamamia page. Let’s see just how far this can go to stopping some of the comments we hear over and over and over again!
Gilmore Girls
One week to go. We are ready!
WDD Twitter Marathon
The force of nature that is Cherise Shockley managed to pull off (once again) a 24 hour tweetchat for World Diabetes Day that included moderators and participants from all over the globe with an impressive variety of topics.
There was a bit of national Aussie pride in there with 4 hours of the chat being moderated by advocates from Down Under. I moderated an hour – with a focus on diabetes stigma – at 5pm ET which was 9am (Wednesday 15 November) AEDT, meaning I was into hour 27 of WDD when it was my turn to ask the questions.
Blue fatigue
My hand is a pretty damn good indication of how I am feeling right now. Still hanging in there with the whole ‘go-blue-diabetes-awareness-rah-rah-rah’ thing, but only just. Half way through Diabetes Awareness Month; World Diabetes Day is over and I am really feeling a lot of blue fatigue.
It seems that I am not the only one. Kerri wrote this on Six Until Me the other day and it resonated with a number of people, me included.
But the people; the people!
I was lucky enough to spend World Diabetes Day with some great diabetes people. We had house guests from Germany with us and my neighbour Jo popped in for a bit too. And my Amazing family were also there and, you know what, we hardly spoke diabetes at all!
It reminded me that my diabetes world is about people – those I’ve met; those who support me through it all; those I connect with online and in real life. And I know that I couldn’t do this without them to help me through.
#IFLGseesawchallenge
And finally, diabetes is such constant balancing act, and I don’t know about you, but I rarely manage any semblance of equilibrium!
So, I love the Insulin for Life Seesaw campaign – as both a metaphor for diabetes and also as a way to raise funds for an important cause.
Get involved by uploading your photo depicting the seesaw challenge of living with diabetes. Add the tag #iflseesawchallenge to your pic and Medtronic Australia will donate $1.25 to Insulin For Life Global. $1.25 is the amount it costs to transport a week’s worth of insulin to someone in need in a developing country.
Yesterday, I went to the fridge and pulled out a fresh vial of insulin. I used it to refill my insulin pump and then placed the mostly-full vial in my bag. As it was the second to last vial from my current prescription, I called my local pharmacy and asked if they could order me in a repeat of my prescription.
And then I wandered to a favourite café for breakfast and didn’t think about it again. I knew that the following day I’d receive a call from the pharmacist telling me that my insulin was waiting for me and I’d go in on my way home from work, fork over $40 and be set for another three or so months.
Rocking my new Insulin for Life Global tee. So honoured to be an ambassador for this worthy cause.
That’s not how it works in a lot of other places around the world. And it’s why when I was contacted by Joanna Sader from Insulin for Life Global asking me to be an Ambassador for the organisation, I didn’t hesitate before answering ‘Of course!’
Insulin for Life has been around for a long time. I remember when I was very new to the diabetes organisation world hearing all about it from the organisation’s founder Ron Raab. And then, a couple of years ago, I saw a wonderful documentary, Sweet 16, about the program, made by a young woman from Canada.
The organisation has continued to expand over the years, and today, on World Diabetes Day, is launching Insulin for Life Global (IFL Global). The organisation contributes to international efforts providing insulin to people unable to afford or access insulin or diabetes supplies in developing countries.
IFL Global, through its country affiliates, collects in-date and unneeded insulin and diabetes supplies, distributing them to developing countries, where they are distributed free of charge. It also fundraises to support transport costs, which is the biggest barrier to keeping the operation going.
You can learn more about the program by going to their new website and by watching the video below.
How can you help? Glad you asked! There are many ways you can get involved including making a one-off or regular donations, promoting their work through your networks or donating unused, in-date insulin and diabetes supplies. Details about how you can contribute to IFL Global can be found here.
I write a lot about remembering to look outside our bubble of privilege. Insulin for Life Global is another player in the space reminding us that diabetes drugs and supplies are not a right for all. And we can – and should – do something to help. Our diabetes brothers and sisters around the world do not deserve to die because they cannot access the life-saving drugs so many of us take for granted.
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.
_____________________________________________________________________________________
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.
It’s day four of Diabetes Awareness Month and I am feeling a little burnt out. Already.
My social media feeds have been washed in blue; it’s Friday and I am in head-to-toe blue, and my kid went off to school today wearing blue pom poms in her hair and a blue circle pinned to her school shirt.
My inbox is full of requests to promote a new awareness initiative or to fund a new campaign, and I am preparing for talks I am giving throughout the month where I will be speaking about real life with diabetes, or the importance of including people with diabetes in the development and running of programs and services for us.
Buildings will be lit up in blue, the media will be (mis)reporting diabetes and there will be blue everywhere. Blue. Blue. Blue.
Yeah. It’s Diabetes Awareness Month.
I’ve been thinking back to my diagnosis and how I thought my life with diabetes was going to turn out. I was promised a cure when I was diagnosed eighteen and a half years ago: ‘There will be a cure in five years – ten at the most.’ I believed it. I really believed it. And I figured that I could manage this diabetes palaver for five years – ten at the most.
Where is my cure?
I write about progress and my excitement at diabetes technology and how it has absolutely changed my life. In my (relatively short) time with diabetes I have been the beneficiary of these new technologies, of better insulins, of smart devices, of support programs, of outstanding education. I am one of the lucky ones.
And yet my cure seems as elusive today as it did when I was diagnosed – in fact more so, because now…now I don’t believe it will be here in five years – ten at the most.
I feel ungrateful even asking for it – I have access to everything I need to manage my condition. My life with diabetes is good. I even had a kid with this stupid condition doing everything in its power to stop that happening. And, let’s be honest, I’ve made a career out of it too.
I write here about the trials and tribulations of this condition, but I know that I am mostly preaching to the converted – those who know what I mean when I write words of daily frustrations, celebrations, victories and annoyances. And that’s okay. You are my tribe and I love you hard – I really do.
But those outside our world don’t know it, and they see me and think it is all okay.
It’s not. It’s not okay for me in my ridiculously privileged diabetes world. And, even more so, it is not okay for people who die because they can’t access insulin. It is not okay for people who struggle so much with the daily tasks of this condition that they can barely raise their head from the pillow. It is not okay for those who feel so stigmatised by diabetes that they refuse to tell anyone about it for fear of retribution and shame. It is not okay that diabetes is a punchline for every piss-poor comedian.
And it’s not okay that there is no cure. I can close my eyes and instantly be transported back to the room where I had my first insulin injection, and I can see the endocrinologist and hear his voice and the words I no longer believe. ‘There will be a cure in five years – ten at the most.’ No. No there won’t.
I have written (frequently) before about T1 International and I am going to do it again this Diabetes Awareness Month.
Because the team at T1International have a new initiative: they are urging people to sign their Type 1 Diabetes Access Charter which outlines five rights that all people with diabetes should have:
- The right to insulin
- The right to manage your blood sugar
- The right to diabetes education
- The right to healthcare
- The right to live free from discrimination
None of these things are luxuries. These are basic human rights that should be afforded to every single person diagnosed with diabetes – not just those of us lucky to be born in a country such as Australia. Insulin is not a new-fangled, fancy drug. It has been around for 95 years. When talking about the right to the tools required to manage bloody sugar, we are not talking latest technology such as continuous or flash glucose monitoring or hybrid-closed loop systems that are entering the market. We are talking about basic blood glucose meters and strips.
The reality is that around the world, many people cannot access or afford insulin or diabetes supplies. Education is sporadic at best. People with diabetes are being forced to choose between buying insulin and buying food or other essentials. How do you make the decision between putting food on the table or buying the life-saving drug you – or your loved one – needs to stay alive? It’s a decision that most of us in Australia never have to even contemplate, but it is a reality for many, many people around the world.
I messaged T1 International founder, Elizabeth Rowley, yesterday to let her know I would be writing about the charter today, but I also wanted to comment on a Facebook post she had just shared.
Elizabeth had used the JDRF diabetes stats calculator (as discussed in yesterday’s post) and shared her results. She had a very different take to how many others responded.
She reminded us that she is the one of the lucky ones because in her almost 25 years as a PWD, she has been able to access whatever she has needed to manage her condition.
When I did my diabetes numbers, I looked at the terrifying number of BGL checks I have done over the last 18 years: 34,749 (although Aaron did suggest that during pregnancy alone I would have done that many!). Not once have I ever had to wonder from where I would be getting my next box of strips. Not once have I thought about rationing strips or pump consumables for fear that I could not afford more when I ran out. Not once have I had to consider taking less insulin that I need.
The scary thing about the numbers generated by the JDRF calculator is not the huge numbers many of us are seeing tallied up. In fact, it is actually the small numbers in those people with diabetes who can’t access what they need to manage their diabetes.
T1 International is doing some amazing things – just as they have done since they started a yea few years ago. Please check out their website, click below to sign the charter and get your friends and family to sign too, and if you can, make a donation to this really important cause.
November is a big month in diabetes. For those of us living in Australia, the main event is World Diabetes Day on 14 November, but I’m certainly happy to be swept up in the USA’s Diabetes Awareness Month.
For the next four weeks, there will be a lot of diabetes awareness about and it’s a great opportunity to speak about real life with diabetes, dispel some myths and set the record straight when someone tells you to increase your cinnamon consumption to cure your diabetes.
Get your blue on…
Blue is the colour of diabetes and, this month, it’s my colour of choice! (Including this potentially misguided nail colour. My manicurist actually said ‘Are you sure?’ when I picked it our yesterday.)
I’m stuck with these nails for a couple of weeks now, but plan to accessorise with a lot more blue (including the blue mascara and eye liner I bring out just for November!)
And a throwback to 2011 (seriously!) when Cherise got a few DOC folk together to make this video. Wear blue!
Diabetes is not about numbers. Until it is.
JDRF has this nifty calculator on their website that (somewhat scarily) adds up the numbers to show just how many diabetes tasks we’ve undertaken in our diabetes lives. Here’s mine (as of yesterday).
I am the first to say that diabetes is not all about numbers, but I do love this because it shows the magnitude of this condition and its relentlessness. You can get yours here.
(And JDRF UK has their own here.)
What is diabetes awareness month all about anyway?
In fact, what are ALL awareness months about? This beautiful and throughtful post from Jessica Apple from A Sweet Life (online magazine) is definitely worth a read.
And this take from a Diabetes Dad…
And Tom Karla (AKA Diabetes Dad) has this to say about just who this whole month is for. (Spoiler: it’s not for those of us already living with diabetes!) As I said on Twitter yesterday – I spend a week every July (during National Diabetes Week in Australia) trying to explain this. Will be forwarding Tom’s post far and wide from now on!
7 day online peer support…
Did you know that there is a free online Peer Diabetes Mentoring Summit running right now (until 7 November). Diabetes Dominator, Daniele Hargenrader, has coordinated this fab event and you can claim your free ticket here. So many terrific sessions with great speakers to follow!
Photo challenge
There’s a fun photo challenge for the month from Project Blue November. Using the prompts they’ve provided, post a photo each day to your SoMe feeds to share your life with diabetes, tagging the pic with #ProjectBlueNovember. Here are the prompts:
What I’d tell myself at diagnosis..
Lovely piece from the team at Diabetes Forecast where some PWD share the wisdom they would give their newly diagnosed self. Read it here.
And here’s the letter I wrote to my newly diagnosed self a few years ago. It still holds pretty true!
Circled
The International Diabetes Federation’s WDD selfie app (download for free at the app store) allows you to add a blue circle – the international symbol for diabetes – to any photo you’d like.
Big Blue Test
And of course, November means that it is time once again for the Big Blue Test, brought to us by Diabetes Hands Foundation. Over 125,000 BBTs have been logged since the program started in 2010. Easy peasy lemon squeezy instructions are:
Get logging for good karma. There’s even an app you can use to make it super easy. (And yes – I’ll be logging before and after I take the pups for a walk!)
Keep in perspective.
It’s really easy to get overwhelmed by everything diabetes that’s going on this month. If your SoMe feeds are anything like mine, they will be overtaken by diabetes and there really does seem to be no escape.
Which is why it’s important to remember that we are about so much more than diabetes and find time in the month to do things that remind us of that. We have a couple of birthdays to plan and an upcoming trip to New York to think about – all things that will hopefully keep the whole month in perspective. Plus there is always baking…maybe some cookies…
Diabetogenic 