What do you want from Diabetes Awareness Month?
Scott Benner
So November is Diabetes Awareness Month. Okay. Now what?
Aside from building awareness, which is a goal that I hold in high regard, what do you want to happen this month? What change, lesson or tidal shift would you like to see occur after the diabetes online community shines their bright light onto the life of people living with diabetes?
"Something tangible", is always my less than complete answer. But is it reasonable to expect that people who don't live with diabetes have the time or space in their busy lives to commit to understanding a complicated disease?
Using myself as an example. I am a person who understands how difficult living with a chronic illness can be, I know how important it is to the people who are effected to get their story into the world. Yet, when I see a pink ribbon or a football player trying to kill another man while wearing pink shoes... I just think, "Breast cancer awareness", but I don't really know the first thing about breast cancer. I've never made a donation to a breast cancer charity, except to honor the passing of a friend, and I don't proselytizing about breast cancer awareness.
I'm as aware as I can be, and I can't tell you one thing that my awareness brings to the people whose lives have been forever changed by breast cancer. But maybe that's enough?
Maybe that's all the breast cancer awareness people can hope for, that I know they are out there and that their lives have been impacted in a way that makes them want to teach others about their plight. Perhaps their efforts are more about adding compassion to the world and empathy that is rooted in honest concern.
Now, if you handed me a magic wand and put me in charge of diabetes awareness, I'd cast a spell on the world so that everyone would know what to do when Arden gets dizzy in the middle of her practice. I'd make it so that each person could feel the insane mix of pressure, stress and fear that I felt last night when I looked down at Arden's glucose meter and saw, "32". I would selfishly turn the entire world into care givers for Arden and each of you. I think that, if I'm being honest, that's what I want from Diabetes Awareness Month - full and complete understanding for my little girl and all of you.
What I expect however, is no more than my reaction to seeing a pink ribbon and maybe that's enough. I hope that it is.
Since I don't have a magic wand, in honor of Diabetes Awareness Month I'm going to dig even deeper and share our life with type I this month in as raw and honest of a manner as my soul can stand.
It's diabetes awareness month. I'm diabetes blogger. That's my magic wand.