Showing posts with label awareness. Show all posts
Showing posts with label awareness. Show all posts

Sunday, November 1, 2015

Diabetes Awareness and Thankfulness

November is diabetes awareness month.  It is also Thanksgiving month, so many people do 30 days of thankfulness.  For 3 years, I've tried to resolve those 2 things in my mind. Sure, I'm thankful for insulin, glucose meters, Dexcom, and all those other things that make this disease more manageable than it has ever been.  But can I find something about the disease itself to be thankful for?  That's where I've struggled.  How can you be thankful for a chronic life-threatening illness?

Then I heard this song:

It describes so perfectly what life has been like the last 3 years.  We are so thankful every day for another day.  It would be poor manners to tell someone else that they aren't promised another day, but I can tell myself!

Our family has always valued our time together, but since diagnosis that time has been even more precious.  We've taken a couple of weekend trips as a family and even took a vacation last year, something we hadn't done in a very long time. We all worked together this past summer.  Jason and I teach at the same school, and the boys attend the same college. They even have a class together.  So yes, we are embracing living life and loving each other every day, more than ever before.  There aren't many things to be thankful for with diabetes, but I think living life to the fullest every single day is a pretty great thing!



Pin It!

Tuesday, July 22, 2014

Show Me Your Pump

Most of the time, Seth and Jason don't care about their Dexcom sensor showing.  In the summer, they both work as lifeguards (Jason is a pool manager in the summer) so their sensor is pretty much always showing.  The questions are pretty much nonstop at the pool, people asking what it is.  Neither of them really mind telling people what it is, otherwise they would wear it under their swimsuit somewhere.  But they do sometimes get tired of answering the same question over and over.  Depending on who asks and how, the answer may be humorous. (I always make them answer sincere questions with the real answer.  Buzzkill, I know.)

Enter Miss Idaho Sierra Sandison.  She wore her insulin pump ON STAGE during the SWIMSUIT portion of the competition.  Well, she actually wore it during the entire thing, but the swimsuit competition was the only time it was really visible.  In a place where appearance is pretty much everything, this brave young lady wore a visible medical device.  Wow!  I am just blown away by her bravery.  She also started a hashtag on social media, #showmeyourpump.  It's kinda gone crazy, with people posting pictures not only of their pumps, but also of other medical devices.  She is empowering people!  How cool is that???


Anyway, back to my guys.  Their reach is nowhere near that of Miss Idaho, but I have no doubt they are influencing someone with their openness.  Medical devices of all kinds are not easy to wear, and even less easy to wear in the open.  But these devices are what make a more normal life possible. It takes brave people that aren't afraid to show those devices to make them more visible/acceptable to the public.  Brave public figures like Sierra Sandison, and all the regular people that just wear their devices in everyday life like Jason and Seth.


Pin It!