Happy World Diabetes Day

November 14th was chosen by the International Diabetes Federation because it also happens to mark the birthday of Frederick Banting who, along with Charles Best, first conceived the idea which led to the discovery of insulin in 1922.

Anyone with insulin dependent diabetes knows how important these two chaps are and I personally owe my life to them.

But it’s bitter sweet to wish people a “Happy World Diabetes Day” when maybe I should save my wish and wish that I didn’t have diabetes in the first place.

Why should I celebrate this day? Why am I celebrating having an illness??? I could roll over and say “to hell with it”. I could decide to not care anymore and give up – let diabetes do its worst and painfully make my life miserable until death.

But I choose to fight! I choose to want to live a good life for a long time and watch my children grow up and maybe even become a grandmother. I want to keep all of my digits and my sight; I don’t want to be on a waiting list for a donor kidney. I want to live life to the fullest.

So, I work hard at trying to stay on top of it. I take my insulin, I test my glucose levels multiple times a day and then some, I weigh my food to find out the carbohydrate content and then calculate how much insulin to inject, and I try to eat healthily.

So I’m not really celebrating having diabetes. I’m celebrating life and the quality of it.

Because I’m worth it!

I will take care of my health because I’m worth it!

I took the best care of my diabetes when I was pregnant with both of my children. And I continue to do it now because my children need me.

It got me thinking about why I didn’t put as much effort into my health before I had children?

Did I believe that I

wasn’t

worth it?

Is that what most of us believe most of the time? Is that why there are so many people with diabetes who don’t manage it well?

Today, I’m going to start to take care of my health for me. I’m going to tell myself every day from today that I AM worth it. I’m going to spend as much time looking after the inside as I do on the outside; this is pertinent because I just got a fab new haircut that I spent time & money on :-) 

I’m going to start telling my health care professionals that I’m worth looking after too. If they start thinking that I’m going to spend time on improving my health maybe they will invest more time in me?

What’s more I’m going to tell everyone I know who has diabetes that they are worth it too. Let’s take a health lesson from L’Oreal. ;-)

How much money can you raise for Diabetes?

Every week, I buy the local paper and try to keep up with events and news around me. Every week, I notice all the sponsored walks, cycles, swims, etc. organized to raise money for charity. I notice all the photos of people exchanging very large cheques too.

I know they are all deserving causes but why does my cause not feature as much in peoples’ minds? We rarely see people raising money for diabetes. I’ve been trying to figure out why.

At first, I thought it was because those other charities were about saving lives. But diabetes has the potential to ruin and end a life too; so it can’t be that.

But maybe people who do not have diabetes aren’t aware that diabetes can ruin a life? This could be possible.

Maybe, it’s because people without diabetes don’t know anyone with diabetes? This has to be impossible because it’s estimated that 200,000 people in Ireland have diabetes.

Or maybe people who don’t have diabetes don’t advocate for people with it because they feel it’s a self-inflicted disease? But nobody asks for diabetes, especially not small babies. Surely this isn’t the reason?

Or maybe, it’s because diabetes is one of the few diseases out there where the emphasis is on “self-care”, and maybe that extends to raising the much needed funds ourselves???

Whatever the reasons people do not think to raise money for diabetes might be; I can’t help feeling sad about them. I form pictures in my head of the faces of diabetes; the small babies, the children, the teenagers trying to fit in, the adults just getting on with their lives and those adults getting old, living in fear of developing a complication of diabetes.

That’s what it is! A lot of us blend in too well and we pretend that we don’t need any help and therefore we don’t ask people for money. So how do I fix this?

What do people think when you say “I have Diabetes”?

I was told recently that “diabetes was a death sentence” by someone who had lost a loved

 one due to complications from this mysterious disease. It stopped me in my tracks. I thought “I hope not”.

This got me thinking about what people who don’t know much about diabetes are really thinking when you tell them you have diabetes.

Over the years some of the comments I’ve received out loud have been that I’m too thin to have diabetes (by the way I’m not thin), I get the pity look, and “God love you”.

So, are people having flashing images of one-legged ailing & blind relatives? Are they thinking that I must be fat and lazy because of all the media attention focused on the link between diabetes and obesity? Are they thinking that I deserve to have diabetes because I’m fat and lazy?

All of these people can be forgiven for what they think – they are lucky enough not to have someone close to them who has it. Unfortunately, according to the figures from the World Health Organisation this will probably change.

Thankfully, I don’t dwell on what other people are thinking and I choose between explaining what having diabetes really means or just practise nodding my head.

Call to Action for People with Diabetes.

Since I returned to live in Ireland I have been increasingly frustrated with the health services available to me, a person with diabetes. This stems from my fear of what the future holds for me health wise. What if one day I developed an ulcer on my leg that just won’t heal? What would happen to me & my family then? The answer is that my husband would help me pack our bags and move us all back to the United States; I would be heartbroken but I would have the very best medical care.

For a while I sat around and moaned about how somebody should do something to change things. Then I progressed to, I wish I could do something… but what? Then, I started finding ways that I could do something (with the help, advice and support from my husband) and did it.

I’m happy to announce that on Saturday, the 11th of September that I became even more empowerment to truly make a difference. I became a Local Diabetes Advocate for Diabetes Action. What I can do was broken down for me into small tasks and it was then explained that if I encouraged others to do them same, how those small tasks would have a huge impact. It is crystal clear to me now.

“Diabetes Action is a new diabetes advocacy group, with a two-year campaign that aims to influence health policy by mobilising grassroots support from Ireland’s growing diabetes community.”

Their first campaign is focusing on improving podiatry services for people with diabetes, who are “needlessly developing complications often leading to amputations.” Between 2005 and 2009, there was 3237 lower limb amputations, 1579 of those were due to diabetes (that’s 49%). 1579 people lost a limb when it should have been prevented. There are lots more facts and figures to blow your mind on the website.

I’m asking people with diabetes to do as I have just done; log onto , fill in your name, postal address & email. The website will create an email for you to send to your TD/Senator asking them to lobby the HSE and the Department of Health & Children to set up a local service as part of a National Foot Screening Programme. The email will contain real facts about services in your county.

Now my mission is to spread the word to as many people with diabetes and their families and encourage them to send this email through Diabetes Action.

We’ve sat around too long wishing we could do something but not knowing what we could do.

Horror Stories vs. Happy Endings

Media attention is a good way to create more awareness about diabetes in the general public. So when I learned that RTE 1 was airing a programme dedicated to the disease I thought “great!”

I quickly changed my mind when I read the programme synopsis in advance of viewing it. We were going to hear the stories of 3 people, one of whom had passed away since filming from diabetes complications, the second was visually impaired and had limb amputations and the third was only a couple of years diagnosed.

I thought to myself “it’s going to be grim and depressing” and decided I was going to be disappointed with the programme. I really didn’t want to watch other peoples’ misery and think that it could one day be me.

Now that I have watched it and heard all of the stories, I heard the message. To me it was loud and clear, “take care of your diabetes or else you will end up like those in the programme”.

I asked myself would I have heard that message from someone who seems to have good management of their diabetes, who didn’t have any of the long term complications, or was young, fit and vibrant?

I think the answer is no.

So, yes we would like to see more inspirational people with diabetes who have good stories to tell us but we also need reminders of what can happen if we choose to ignore our diabetes.