{"id":36036,"date":"2014-05-14T23:06:14","date_gmt":"2014-05-15T03:06:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/asweetlife.org\/?p=36036"},"modified":"2015-12-27T15:47:20","modified_gmt":"2015-12-27T20:47:20","slug":"dblog-week-no-colleagues-with-diabetes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/asweetlife.org\/?p=36036","title":{"rendered":"DBlog Week: No Colleagues with Diabetes"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><em>Today is the third day of <a href=\"http:\/\/www.bittersweetdiabetes.com\/search\/label\/Diabetes%20Blog%20Week\" target=\"_blank\">Diabetes Blog Week<\/a>. Its founder, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.bittersweetdiabetes.com\/\" target=\"_blank\">Karen Graffeo<\/a>, suggests that &#8220;now seems like a great time to explore the emotional side of living with, or caring for someone with, diabetes.&#8221; She asks: &#8220;What things can make dealing with diabetes an emotional issue for you and \/ or your loved one, and how do you cope?&#8221;<\/em><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\">At <a href=\"http:\/\/web.mit.edu\/\" target=\"_blank\">M.I.T.<\/a>, where I work and teach, there are 11,380 employees, including faculty. There are 11,301 students. That&#8217;s 22,681 people in my community, and most of us are located on or around the Cambridge campus.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\">I know a lot of people at work, too. Of my friends and colleagues, I know people with a lot of chronic conditions and some with serious illnesses.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\">I don&#8217;t, however, know anyone at work who has diabetes, Type 1 or Type 2.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\">On the paved walkways among academic buildings, I&#8217;ve seen glucose test strips here and there, like Hansel and Gretel&#8217;s crusts of bread that leave a trail behind them. But I haven&#8217;t seen anyone test their blood glucose in the open.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\">I&#8217;ve told colleagues about my diabetes and insulin pump. People are interested. No one, however, has said that he or she has diabetes or mentioned to me a fellow employee who does.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\">Occasionally, I have worn my insulin pump on the outside of my clothes &#8212; loud and proud &#8212; rather than tucked neatly under my sweater or in my pocket. I want it to beckon others. It doesn&#8217;t.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\">Even though my brother Brian has Type 1 diabetes and my husband has Type 2, I do not have a friend or colleague in my day-to-day work life who injects insulin or wears a pump or counts carbs.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><a href=\"http:\/\/ndep.nih.gov\/diabetes-facts\/\" target=\"_blank\">If 8.3% of the American population has diabetes (any kind), and 5% of that number has Type 1 diabetes<\/a>, that means that as many as 1,882 people at <a href=\"http:\/\/web.mit.edu\/\" target=\"_blank\">M.I.T.<\/a> have diabetes (any kind), and as many as 94 people may have Type 1. Like me.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\">Maybe 10 do. Or 5.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\">I don&#8217;t know any of them.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\">Through social media and people like <a href=\"https:\/\/asweetlife.org\/about\/\" target=\"_blank\">Jessica and Mike<\/a>, I know a lot of people online who have diabetes, but in my actual life I know very few. That is a lonely state.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\">I don&#8217;t know anyone with Type 1 whom I could have lunch with or go to the campus fitness center with.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\">I&#8217;d like to find my phantom colleagues or even students with diabetes. Where and how do I look?<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\">\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":53098,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_relevanssi_hide_post":"","_relevanssi_hide_content":"","_relevanssi_pin_for_all":"","_relevanssi_pin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_unpin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_include_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_exclude_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_no_append":"","_relevanssi_related_not_related":"","_relevanssi_related_posts":"","_relevanssi_noindex_reason":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1501],"tags":[1294],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v22.9 (Yoast SEO v22.9) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>DBlog Week: No Colleagues with Diabetes<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"If 8.3% of the American population has diabetes (any kind), and 5% of that number has Type 1 diabetes, that means that as many as 1,882 people at M.I.T. have diabetes (any kind), and as many as 94 people may have Type 1. 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