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Thursday, November 18, 2010


November is National Diabetes Awareness month. A time when people who live with Diabetes day in and day out want to get the word out about this disease and to also raise money for a cure.
Yet all I have heard about is this month is Type 2 diabetes and it makes me kinda mad. Yes, I know that there is a Type 2 epidemic in America, but that is mostly due to self inflicted problems. Really America, you can almost always reverse Type 2 if you are willing to put the needed work and changes into it!
People with Type 1 don't have the luxury of popping a pill a few times a day and watching what you eat.
No, we have to live with a little bit more then that. Multiple insulin injections a day and finger sticks galore, and if you are lucky enough to be on an insulin pump, great, but that means infusion site changes every 3 days and welts that make your belly look like its polka dotted, just to name a few things.
So instead of showing the stories of middle aged, overweight people with Type 2 Diabetes on the Evening News, why not show the stories that will make people want to donate money to find a cure? Show the 8 month old who's parents have to give shots and finger sticks to multiple times a day while they all just want to cry, or the toddler who just won't eat but who's blood sugar is low, and the 8 year old who can't have a piece of birthday cake because his sugar is too high, or the parents who go to bed in fear every night that their teenage son may not wake up in the morning because his sugar went too low. Seriously, these are the stories that need a cure. The stories that cannot be changed any other way.

1 comment:

  1. Great post! My dad has type 2 and that is hard enough on him. I can't imagine having type 1. It is amazing how much America has its priorities backwards. As you said type 2 can be fixed with hard work. We should focus not on fixing type 2 but stopping it before people get there and work at the same time on type 1. Sounds like a plan to me.

    Aaron

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