One of the joys of getting a massage is to forget about the world for an hour. Unfortunately today I was unable to do that. Well getting a massage the person kept hitting my pump and finally asked what is that thing I keep hitting. I told him that it was an insulin pump and that I was a type one diabetic. His response was one that I get way too often, you’re in great shape how do you have diabetes? I don’t know why I have it honestly but the type of diabetes I have is not the one he was thinking about. As a type one diabetic I can’t tell you the number of times I have heard the "diabetes questions". "Do you have the good kind or the bad kind?" "How does someone catch diabetes?" "Do you want a piece of gum for your low blood sugar?" "Oh you have diabetes that means you can’t have sugar right?" The list goes on and on, I used to get very upset with people when I was asked a ridiculous diabetes question.
The sad truth is that very few people know about or understand type one diabetes. You may ask yourself whose fault is that? The answer to that question is simple; it's every type one diabetics fault. As diabetics we often times have pity parties, yes diabetes is not a fun disease and it is one that has no cure. In my transformation from "bad diabetic" to "good diabetic" I stopped feeling bad for myself. I stopped looking at the things I couldn't do because of my disease. I started to look at the good. I have a disease that has made me better as a person; I'm wise beyond my years because of Diabetes. It is a disease that makes every decision throughout the day that much tougher. When a diabetic is hungry a lot goes in to the decision on what to eat. I would love to go to McDonalds and have a value meal, having to adjust my insulin for garbage food is a lot tougher than giving insulin for good food. As diabetics we have to look outside our diabetes circle. Yes it is very important to make sure everyone that is a part of the diabetes family is safe and healthy. In my mind to raise awareness and raise the amount of money that goes towards diabetes research we need to appeal to pop culture.
Anyone who knows me knows that I have a huge man crush on Lance Armstrong. He's the reason I ride my bike, he had cancer and beat it and then went on to be one of the greatest cyclists ever. I have diabetes and in my mind that’s nowhere near as tough as cancer, if Lance can do it why not me. Lance was an unbelievable athlete pre cancer, world champion and United States champion cyclist, competed in triathlons and ran marathons. I will never do what he did on the bike, I'm past my prime when it comes to cycling and I never rode before I started riding two years ago. Where I feel I can compete with Lance is in fundraising. Those yellow bands raised eighty million dollars. Seventy million of that went to Livestrong marketing. The other ten million went towards cancer research. Cancer and Lance got extremely lucky, he won the Tour De France and was able to get his story out to the masses. I sit in bed and often think world class athletes and celebrities have diabetes why is cancer getting all of the attention. Don't think that I have anything against cancer or anyone who has the disease. I'm jealous of cancer and of Livestrong. That needs to be diabetes.
I'm hoping someone in the diabetes community that is a professional athlete or celebrity comes out and embraces the disease. I have dreams that diabetes will be in professional sports arenas, that athletes will wear something to raise awareness; I want to make the disease known to the masses. I have challenged myself to go that extra step and inform people that don’t know about diabetes. I started this website to raise awareness; I will take the extra five minutes to explain to someone how my insulin pump works and why I need it. To any diabetics that read this, I challenge you to go that extra step; don’t be afraid to tell people about your disease. If we don’t inform people about our disease we will be treading water and will be going nowhere, the "diabetes questions" will continue and we will continue to be angry that no one really knows about diabetes. For non-diabetics that read this, I challenge you as well, share this website and the ones listed below. Help diabetics get closer to a cure and make them feel better about the diabetes by getting more people to understand this disease.
http://sixuntilme.com/
http://despitediabetes.wordpress.com/
http://www.diabetesdaily.com/
http://www.diabetes.org/
www.diabetespower.org.uk
http://www.jdrf.org/
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmedhealth/PMH0002194/
The sad truth is that very few people know about or understand type one diabetes. You may ask yourself whose fault is that? The answer to that question is simple; it's every type one diabetics fault. As diabetics we often times have pity parties, yes diabetes is not a fun disease and it is one that has no cure. In my transformation from "bad diabetic" to "good diabetic" I stopped feeling bad for myself. I stopped looking at the things I couldn't do because of my disease. I started to look at the good. I have a disease that has made me better as a person; I'm wise beyond my years because of Diabetes. It is a disease that makes every decision throughout the day that much tougher. When a diabetic is hungry a lot goes in to the decision on what to eat. I would love to go to McDonalds and have a value meal, having to adjust my insulin for garbage food is a lot tougher than giving insulin for good food. As diabetics we have to look outside our diabetes circle. Yes it is very important to make sure everyone that is a part of the diabetes family is safe and healthy. In my mind to raise awareness and raise the amount of money that goes towards diabetes research we need to appeal to pop culture.
Anyone who knows me knows that I have a huge man crush on Lance Armstrong. He's the reason I ride my bike, he had cancer and beat it and then went on to be one of the greatest cyclists ever. I have diabetes and in my mind that’s nowhere near as tough as cancer, if Lance can do it why not me. Lance was an unbelievable athlete pre cancer, world champion and United States champion cyclist, competed in triathlons and ran marathons. I will never do what he did on the bike, I'm past my prime when it comes to cycling and I never rode before I started riding two years ago. Where I feel I can compete with Lance is in fundraising. Those yellow bands raised eighty million dollars. Seventy million of that went to Livestrong marketing. The other ten million went towards cancer research. Cancer and Lance got extremely lucky, he won the Tour De France and was able to get his story out to the masses. I sit in bed and often think world class athletes and celebrities have diabetes why is cancer getting all of the attention. Don't think that I have anything against cancer or anyone who has the disease. I'm jealous of cancer and of Livestrong. That needs to be diabetes.
I'm hoping someone in the diabetes community that is a professional athlete or celebrity comes out and embraces the disease. I have dreams that diabetes will be in professional sports arenas, that athletes will wear something to raise awareness; I want to make the disease known to the masses. I have challenged myself to go that extra step and inform people that don’t know about diabetes. I started this website to raise awareness; I will take the extra five minutes to explain to someone how my insulin pump works and why I need it. To any diabetics that read this, I challenge you to go that extra step; don’t be afraid to tell people about your disease. If we don’t inform people about our disease we will be treading water and will be going nowhere, the "diabetes questions" will continue and we will continue to be angry that no one really knows about diabetes. For non-diabetics that read this, I challenge you as well, share this website and the ones listed below. Help diabetics get closer to a cure and make them feel better about the diabetes by getting more people to understand this disease.
http://sixuntilme.com/
http://despitediabetes.wordpress.com/
http://www.diabetesdaily.com/
http://www.diabetes.org/
www.diabetespower.org.uk
http://www.jdrf.org/
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmedhealth/PMH0002194/
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