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.

Moments of Inspiration

Meeting Steve Beriault.

I had the pleasure of meeting a man by the name of Steve Beriault on Sunday the 11th of July in the Limerick Strand Hotel, where he came to share his personal experiences in living with Type 1 Diabetes.

Steve is a 59 year old Canadian, he was diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes when he was 2 years old; he has lived with it for 57 years.

He was diagnosed in the “boiling the glass syringe to sterilise it” era. He was in his early 30’s when he received his first Blood Glucose Meter. Before this he had no way of knowing what his blood glucose numbers were at any time and there were no HbA1c’s tests either.

His achievements include; cycling across Canada in 1975, kayaking halfway across Canada, completing five 5K walkathons and raising $100,000 for the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation (JDRF) as a double amputee.

Diabetes threw everything it had at him; diabetic retinopathy, kidney disease resulting in a kidney transplant, and neuropathy leading to both legs being amputated below the knee but he still comes out fighting. Of all of these tortures he says that “you want to make the best of what you’ve got in life and live it”.

He maintains that if you have diabetes you need to become a warrior and that diabetes is your enemy. He goes on to say that the worldwide diabetes population comprises almost 240 million persons. About 24 million (10%) are Type 1 diabetics. Imagine if one could mobilise those 24 million as an army in this war with diabetes. This army has huge potential to raise the funds needed to research a cure and to create awareness & education programmes.

I’ve never thought of diabetes as my enemy; I’d rather think of it as a more of a friend, so to speak, because having enemies can be exhausting and eventually you get tired of fighting. However, I like the analogy and after listening to Steve I am ready to take up arms and fight. Maybe if the researchers heard from us, the people they are trying to cure, more often they might become more inspired too.

http://www.talesintheinsulinvial.com/

Sometimes you just feel tired…

Diabetes is a peculiar disease sometimes, in that, when everything is going well with your blood sugars you actually feel GREAT! You might actually stop and wonder how you could have a disease when you feel so healthy!

However, when the old blood sugars are not doing what they are supposed to and that sluggish tired feeling creeps in, it can be hard to get back on track. And it’s such a vicious cycle; you need some cheering up when the numbers let you down so you indulge in some comfort food, which exacerbates the problem. Then, you feel guilty for having the chocolate (or whatever the poison might be) and get even more down. At this point, it’s harder to feel good. Depression can sneak in and it takes quite a while to get back on the tracks again.
Every day that I feel like I could take on Mount Clean-the-Windows I have a little celebration and tell myself “well done” and “see, you can do this”. And I tell myself that all the carb counting, the sums in figuring out how much insulin to take for this meal and the watching every single bite that I put into my mouth is worth it. It’s encouragement to keep it up.
But then, there are days when you have that sluggish-tired feeling and you try to determine what your body is telling you. You feel like sitting in front of the telly and watching hours of Nickjr or Playhouse Disney with the kids instead of testing your blood sugars.
It pays off though when you do make the effort and test because when you get a good number you realise that it’s the fact that your body is just plain old TIRED and it’s nothing that a good night’s sleep will cure…. Sometimes, getting a good eight hours of sleep is more difficult than diabetes:-)