{"id":21428,"date":"2011-11-04T10:09:14","date_gmt":"2011-11-04T14:09:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/asweetlife.org\/?p=21428"},"modified":"2015-12-27T15:44:24","modified_gmt":"2015-12-27T20:44:24","slug":"this-diabetes-awareness-month-tell-the-world-you-arent-equal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/asweetlife.org\/?p=21428","title":{"rendered":"This Diabetes Awareness Month Tell the World You Aren’t Equal"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u00a0A few days ago, I heard about the JDRF<\/a> ad in the New York Times<\/em> and the Washington Post<\/em>, but I didn’t see it until my friend Laura Houston posted it on her blog<\/a>.\u00a0 The ad shows a beautiful little girl with type 1 diabetes, along with a statistic that made my jaw drop.\u00a0 One in twenty people with type 1 diabetes will die of low blood sugar.\u00a0 One in twenty will die from hypoglycemia?!\u00a0 Seriously? 1 in 20?<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

My first thought was that they must have left out the word “thousand.”\u00a0 It has to be one in twenty thousand.\u00a0 It can’t be one in twenty.\u00a0 I read about diabetes all day, every day.\u00a0 And somehow I have never seen that statistic anywhere, not presented like that, at least.\u00a0 1 in 20.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Of course, I’ve always known the stakes are high.\u00a0 That’s the reason when I wake up in the middle of the night, I sometimes touch my husband’s forehead to see if there is sweat on his brow.\u00a0 If there is, I wake him to check his blood sugar.\u00a0 That’s the reason I cried when I first injected insulin into my thigh before I went to sleep.\u00a0 It wasn’t the pain.\u00a0 It was the thought of the two of us sleeping on insulin.\u00a0 The stakes are high, but 1 in 20…?<\/p>\n

There’s a good chance 100 people with type 1 diabetes will read this post today.\u00a0 5 in 100.<\/p>\n

I bet I have at least 200 acquaintances with type 1 diabetes.\u00a0 10 in 200.<\/p>\n

I want to ask you something.\u00a0 Am I the only person who thinks we’re doing Diabetes Awareness Month all wrong?\u00a0 Parties, cheering, patting each other on the back, dressing up as blue as Smurfs, lighting up monuments…? \u00a0That’s all nice, but it doesn’t bring about real change.\u00a0 So, we can’t all take out an ad the New York Times, but if you get together with people on November 14, World Diabetes Day, you can take a sign with your photo on it that says “SAVE MY LIFE.” If twenty of you get together, take a photo and write a horrifying caption with what the statistic says will to happen to someone in the picture. \u00a0You can let your local newspapers know what you’re going to do. \u00a0As Laura Houston<\/a> says, “Be bold.” \u00a0<\/p>\n

Our most important goal in diabetes month must be to change the statistic 1 in 20.\u00a0 We should all be screaming at the top of our lungs for the artificial pancreas. SCREAMING!\u00a0 And when it’s here, we should all start screaming to make sure it’s available to everyone who needs it.\u00a0<\/p>\n

If you want to educate people about diabetes this month, don’t do it by trying to prove that we are equal in all ways, and that we can <\/em>eat that.\u00a0 We aren’t equal.\u00a0 Trying to prove that we are the same, and putting on our brave faces may in fact be our fatal flaw.\u00a0 Wheelchair users don’t get cities to put in curb ramps by pretending they can walk.\u00a0 We have a life-threatening illness.\u00a0 Every time we eat, we inject insulin.\u00a0 That means every time we eat, we’re risking our lives.\u00a0 And the more carbohydrates we eat, the more insulin we take, the riskier it gets.\u00a0 1 in 20.\u00a0 Stop saying, yes, I can.\u00a0 <\/em>Start screaming, No, I can’t.<\/em> \u00a0\u00a0Maybe then the world, and the FDA, will pay attention.\u00a0 Let us all begin to eat in peace.<\/p>\n

Click here<\/a> to sign JDRF’s Artificial Pancreas Petition.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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