Guest post - "Greatness because of Diabetes"

Emma & Mini-Type1Rider 

Guest Post via http://Type1Rider.org

Type1Rider.org is pleased to present a Guest post from one of our favorite Dmom's, Author, Advocate, and Creator (with her Daughter Emma) of 'Diabetic Barbie'...Amy Ermel. We also would like to express our most profound gratitude for the masterpiece in creating BY HAND, the Mini-Type1Rider pictured above. 

First of all, I would like to say that I am honored to be writing a guest post for Type1Rider.org, thank you very much for the opportunity! My daughter, Emma is 8 years old and was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes 4 years ago. Since that day, I have learned so many things to say the least. I think I would like to dedicate this post to one in particular though...greatness.

When the doctor walked in the room and gave us the official diagnosis, I never would have thought that anything great or positive could have come of it. I thought that we were destined for a life of battles with food, needles, blood sugars, and insulin. I thought that it would consume us and take over every single aspect of our lives. I thought that there could never possibly be anything that would shine some light on our now darkened spirits. Boy was I wrong!

A mere 5 months after Emma was diagnosed, she approached me and asked if we could set up a lemonade stand out front of our house to raise money for "the people looking for a cure." She looked up at me with such innocent and determined eyes, that there was no way I could say no.

Seeing as how it was November, we convinced her to switch it to hot chocolate..contacted JDRF, made a few phone calls....and managed to raise $1200 in 3 hours time on November 14th (World Diabetes Day). As I sit here now thinking of that night, I can remember her face....her little 4 year old face...standing there with such hope in her eyes. She was on marshmallow duty naturally...what other job would a 4 year old want, right? She stood there for 3 hours filling cup after cup with marshmallows, chatting with hundreds of people about her diabetes, telling them that she was helping to find a cure. To say I was proud, would be the understatement of the century. That night was one of the first moments that I saw her "greatness". I saw the incredible amount of potential and drive and determination that lies within a person living with diabetes.

One day last year, Emma came home from school and told me that her friends had been talking about how there was going to be a bald version of a Barbie doll made to support kids dealing with cancer and other diseases involving hair loss. She once again looked up at me with those same innocent and determined eyes and asked me so matter of factly why there wasn't a doll out in the stores that had diabetes. I decided to make a toy insulin pump and blood sugar meter for her to play with on one of her own dolls. I thought there is no way that I could ever take on a toy manufacturer and help her make this dream a reality. I thought that it would just be left at that...a toy for only her to play with.

Well, Emma decided that she wanted other kids to be able to play with them too. She wanted other kids to have something that made them feel special. She wanted to keep going with this idea...and really, with that greatness and that drive that lies inside her....who was I to say no? So, we created a Facebook page to gain support for our campaign to make this a reality available in stores...and we have nearly 6,000 supporters.

I think back to that day of diagnosis and I want to wipe away the tears of that old me and force myself to look at my daughter through clear focused eyes. I want her to see that greatness...that drive...the flickering light that is the embers of hope that burns from her gaze. I see it now. I see it and I know that no matter what this life throws our way and no matter how many times diabetes tries to bring us to our knees.....we will make it. We will do better than just make it...we will leap over every hurdle with style and we will make things happen. We will make change happen all because of her greatness.

 You can visit Amy's Blog HERE

To purchase a "virtual cup of hot chocolate" to help Emma support JDRF, please click on the following link: http://www.canadahelps.org/GivingPages/GivingPage.aspx?gpID=21134

To support Emma in her dream of a Diabetic Barbie, or other doll[s],  please click on the following link and click "like" on her Facebook page and share with others to spread the word! : http://www.facebook.com/DiabeticBarbie 

Special treat for our BHS fans!

We have a special guest blogger today! Her name is Mollie Busby. You may know her from the Mollie Shambeau Show.You can read all about her here. The reason I found her so intriguing was her journey from fashion writer to being thrust into the world of Type 1 when she met professional snowboarder, Sean Busby, who is also the founder of Riding on Insulin, and her husband! I know how it is to be a caregiver to a Type 1 diabetic from a Mother's point of view but was interested in how it is to be a spouse of a T1D.  So thank you Mollie for sharing your story with us!!

 BHS Fans; here is Mollie's story...enjoy!! 

Marrying into diabetes
Greetings to friends and fans of the Blue Heel Society. I am so please to be guest blogging for this fabulous cause. As you may know, I’m Mollie Busby and I am married to Sean Busby, a professional backcountry snowboarder living with type 1 diabetes.

Today I want to write about what it’s like to “marry into diabetes.” It sounds funny to say, but that’s how we, the diabetes spouses, refer to it. I remember meeting the wife of one of our Riding On Insulin board members last December, and it was completely normal for me to ask, “Did you marry into diabetes like I did?” (Her answer was yes—needless to say we had a lot to talk about!)

When I met Sean, I knew next to nothing about type 1 diabetes. I was just a style editor who—as I used to say—“shopped” for a living. I thought diabetes happened to kids, and I knew there were people riding bikes to raise money for the cause, but that’s about it. After I met Sean, I remember asking him to go over the deal with sugar and insulin—what raises your blood sugar, and what lowers it. Seems pretty obvious, right? But I have to remember that back then, it wasn’t obvious because diabetes wasn’t my reality. Now it is.

My first real encounter with diabetes happened with Sean in the Cook Islands. During summer of 2010, Sean and I took our first trip together. Day one was amazing… we watched the sun rise, snorkeled, explored the island and drank margaritas. Sounds like vacation, right? Day 2—not so much. I got food poisoning from what we thought was a latte (we figured it was the water because we’d eaten all the same things that day). My bout got so bad that I had to go to the hospital to get an IV of fluids to rehydrate my body. I remember we discussed that if anything happened to Sean, I would get him to the hospital right away. Needless to say, it didn’t take long before we could put that vow into practice. We figured out the real cause of the food poisoning after Sean ate the leftovers from our spaghetti and meat sauce the night before… sure enough, a few hours after dinner, he was throwing up and I was fumbling with the testing supplies to see if his diabetes was the cause, or if it was food related. I’d never actually tested his or my sugar before so I remember being extremely nervous. Soon thereafter, we were off to the hospital once again—this time for an overnight stay. You can imagine my delight when I heard that! I spent the night on a mattress (on the floor) next to Sean’s hospital bed in a non-air-conditioned room while lizards darted across the walls… and I will never, ever forget that night!

From that day on, I resolved to learn all I could about T1D, and today I’m proud to say I’m currently enrolled in the prerequisite courses needed to obtain my masters in dietetics, which I plan to use to become a certified diabetes educator. Plus, running Riding On Insulin—our nonprofit organization, keeps me up-to-date with the diabetes community on a daily basis.

It’s funny how my life has come full circle… from fashion writer to finger-pricker. But you know what? I wouldn’t trade it for anything... even an all-expense paid vacation to the Cook Islands. ☺

Mollie Busby writes a lifestyle/adventure blog called The Mollie Shambeau Show. Find her online at http://themollieshambeaushow.com.

Challenge: Dear Diabetes by Melissa Morley

A few weeks ago I posted my letter to diabetes, simply titled: Dear Diabetes. Thank you to Melissa Morley for sharing her Dear Diabetes letter with us! You can find Melissa at Naturally Sweet-Life with Type 1 Diabetes here. 

Jen encouraged the rest of us to write and share our own letters to Diabetes.  I want Jen to know that I tried; God knows I did.  My first attempt was an f-bomb laced diatribe.  My second attempt was a letter of a defiant and threatening nature.  The third time around I just wrote "you can't have Alison" and cried until I couldn't cry anymore.

While my attempt at a letter that I could share with all of you, one that would be therapeutic and helpful, might seem like a bust, I re-learned a lesson that keeps coming up.  My friend Tammy's mother Debbie has told me that the universe will send you the same assignment over and over again until you learn it by heart and this one is taking me a while.  IT WILL TAKE A LONG TIME FOR THE PAIN OF DIAGNOSIS TO EASE, if it ever will.

I keep thinking that my life has moved on.  That I am okay with poking my child with lancets and testing her blood several times a day.  That putting tubes into her body and giving her needles is just the way it is.  That it is what it is.  That the late nights are fine.  That watching my child go through her worst moments while feeling helpless is okay.  Then I will have a day when I get that feeling like I did on the day that we were diagnosed almost two years ago.

The best way I can describe it is this.  When they told us that Alison was in Diabetic ketoacidosis , the room felt like the air had been sucked out of it.  Everyone feels it differently.  But that's what it was like for me.  When it hits me, every once in a while, it feels like that again.

The one thing I would tell Diabetes is this though, someone like Alison, who is currently running around the living room, wearing a cape calling herself Super Ali, is hard to put down and hard to be down around your very own super hero!

Guest Post ... Your Diabetes Mission

We would like to give a big BLUE shout out to Guest Blogger, Meagan Esler.

Meagan is a freelance writer based in Chicago and has been featured in Diabetes Living magazine and Diabetes Health. Enjoy Meagan's post about a Mission Impossible!

Your Diabetes Mission, Should You Choose to Accept

I know a healthy life with diabetes is possible, but sometimes I feel a bit like my life is a version of a Mission Impossible movie when it comes to managing my diabetes.  Like Tom Cruise, I do my own stunts.  Admittedly, my stunts aren’t nearly as cool as scaling a towering building in Dubai.  One of my regular stunts actually just involves trying to eat some Chicago-style pizza without having sky high blood sugars. 

Another stunt involves trying not to go low during a lengthy morning meeting at work.  As the meeting extends on into the afternoon, I hear the Mission Impossible theme song as the shaking starts in my hands.  That stunt always ends in my grabbing some juice, a previously sworn off donut, or any glucose source from my purse – lint covered or not.  Disaster is thankfully avoided before going low enough to pass out.  If you have diabetes or care for someone with diabetes you understand that those scenarios make for some real edge-of-your-seat stuff.  Each of my stunts offer a level of danger, it’s just not the kind delivered with undercover agent swagger.   

Other Mission Impossible similarities include some of the gadgets that are the key to having good diabetes control.  A blood sugar meter is as important as Tom Cruise’s best agent.  Technological advances with insulin pumps, diabetes iphone apps, and continuous glucose monitors remind me of the Mission Impossible contact lenses that take pictures or offer facial recognition.  Have you heard of the contact lenses they are working on that change color with your blood sugar levels?  That’s some serious Mission Impossible stuff right there.

A crucial part of a diabetes mission is to find a team that you trust.  It might not be a team of agents, but rather, a team of people living with diabetes, or other parents of children with diabetes.  These people will have your back day or night.  The Blue Heel Society is a beautiful example of this. 

Maybe our lives aren’t as thrilling as a movie, but they sure are worth living.  You may not have a choice of getting diabetes, but you do have a choice in how you deal with it.  Our mission, should we choose to accept, is to live a long, happy, and healthy life with diabetes.  We shouldn’t let diabetes slow us down.  We shouldn’t let it hold us back.  We shouldn’t let it destroy our sense of humor because diabetes requires humor to survive.  So don some blue shoes, put on some dark shades, and crank up the Mission Impossible theme song in your car.  Your diabetes mission is in full swing and it’s the most important one you’ll ever have.    

Guest Post: Diabetic Sister Life: Alone

Welcome to a new Guest blogger for Blue Heel Society, Evelyn Loving, the Daughter of our very own Chief Content Officer, Jen. She is a Senior at McNicholas High School and will be graduating in just 2 weeks!! Evelyn has a soft heart for kids, especially her brother and sister that both have medical issues. She puts up with a lot, asks little in return and offers her insight, as a sister of a diabetic. As a parent if you've ever wondered how your kids without D feel...here is Evelyn's perspective:

ALONE

Don't you hate it when you are alone? When you are the only on sitting at a table during lunch and no one is talking to you? Or when you are in class and everyone is in their little circle and you're left by yourself? Yeah, it straight up sucks. This is sometimes how I feel with my family. Don't get me wrong, I LOVE my family! I really do, but sometimes I do feel like that girl at the lunch table by herself. Even though I am a pre-diabetic I still don't get the attention that I want. I'm not saying that I want 100% of attention, but I know that my family does love me and cares for me its just hard because I do have Jackson with a medical problem, and of course my sister.

My mom does A LOT for diabetes and A LOT for my sister, which is great! She is "Super Mom" haha. But no one really sees what I do. There was this one time where my mom told me a story about this little girl who died because her parents didn't hear her pump going off. Ever since she told me that story, I now sleep in the same room as my sister. Even when I have friends come and spend the night I do still stay in the same room as her. I worry about her 24/7.

There is never a time when I am not thinking about her or what she is doing or what her blood sugar is. It is something that I do stress about if I'm not with her, and not everyone sees that. I just want people to know that any sickness or anything can really change another person's life. And also even though I don't get the attention that I want, I still know that my parents love me, and that they really do care about me. They would do ANYTHING for me. Just don't forget to show love to others even if they don't have diabetes or any sickness. We want to feel loved too!

EndoGoddess - Future of eHealth

As a technology Entrepreneur, Doctor, and Patient, this video is the future that I dream about. Easy access to my medical information that I can interact with, video conferencing with the medical team, easy access to clinical trials, easy prescription reminders and renewals. I'm not sure exactly why the patient in the video with type 1 diabetes is taking only pills but I like to dream that it is because of a partial cure that at least eliminates insulin shots.

Currently, technology companies like Duet Health, the company that makes EndoGoddess App http://www.duethealth.com  are numerous and are making products that are not all connected, however, I would like you to know that just about all of these companies are banking on a future such as the one in this video. We are all starting to develop partnerships, so that all of the products can work together in a harmonious fashion that allows life with diabetes to be easier.

This is not going to happen overnight. And, we need the patient voice to continue the important advocacy work of speaking up. Yes, just speaking up for what you like and don't like about the products helps to shape the future and move things faster to the vision in this video.

So, here are my recommendations for how YOU can help make this video a reality:

1. Participate in using technology products as frequently as you can.

2. ALWAYS submit comments and letters and blog posts with your honest opinions.

3. Reach out to the companies that make your favorite products and offer your opinions and help so that the future that they are shaping is one that you want.

4. Repeat, repeat, repeat...what you have to say will always be new to at least one person and what you have to say is never done until there are no more 'new' people.

- Jennifer Shine Dyer MD, MPH

drjenshinedyer@gmail.com

Columbus, Ohio

• Founder, EndoGoddess LLC
• Chief Medical Advisor, Duet Health (Eproximiti)
• Blog/website: http://endogoddess.blogspot.com/
• Website: http://www.duethealth.com/
• LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/jennifershinedyer
• Twitter: http://twitter.com/#!/EndoGoddess
• YouTube Channel:  http://www.youtube.com/user/drjenshinedyer

Walk the Catwalk… The Diabetes Catwalk

They were big, and golden; an amber kind of golden. Big, and gaudy. Flashy. A novelty. I'm not really sure how my mom got them. These were about size 11 heels, and my mom was around 5½.

All I knew at the time, was that they were awesome. They were not the same, boring, every day, sensible shoes that *I* had to wear. Brown or black, mom always said. "All you ever need to compliment an outfit, are either brown, or black shoes. Otherwise you end up wasting money, foolishly."

They were always tucked away at the very back of my oldest sister's closet (and she was a size 8)... and every time they came out during a Spring closet cleaning (and for some reason, never disposed of), it was like Christmas morning.

I remember the day I discovered them. Mom seemed almost embarrassed to own them, and seemed to try, rather discreetly, to just put them back where they were. But their glint, and glitter caught my eye... and a love affair of sorts began. I eagerly asked if I could try them on... for role play, I said. I must have been about 6 years old. Amazingly, she easily caved in, with an "Oh, alright... but only for a little bit," which she sternly declared. "And be careful in those things, don't fall and get hurt."

They were just enormous on my little feet, of course... but who cared! They had the tallest high heel I had ever seen... and well, you put them on, you tried to prance "elegantly" down the long hallway with the mirror at the end, and you tried hard not to trip! And at 6 years old, no one really thinks you're going to "doll up," and run off with a boy, while wearing size 11, 'loose woman' kind of heels, so your mom LETS YOU play in them! Oh, joy!!

I loved those heels. I loved everything they represented.

But I grew up... and I never bought my own pair of gaudy, flashy... glittery heels. I was always caught up in the sensible, brown or black, Catholic-school-approved type of shoes. I had almost forgotten the memory of those golden beauties, until about this morning (to tell you the truth). I don't know why I chanced remembering them, now.

Maybe... just maybe... because recapturing that bit of morning joy; that childhood love affair... That's how the Blue Heel Society makes me feel.

You see, it was never comfortable walking in those shoes... and you were always an inch away from falling on your face! Those things were not exactly the stuff of Hush Puppies' commercials... but that was never the point. The point was being fabulous, being a Queen, being the Grande Dame, being... a rock star. Being someone you NEVER thought you could be... with just a pair of shoes. Being... a fabulous diva.

As adults, we tend to lose some of that imaginative edge... And it does seem a lot harder, now, doesn't it? To be inspired to reach those heights? To live out our dreams? To even get up, and get going... because we have a different kind of catwalk, these days. Some mornings, we can barely manage it. You know which walk. The Diabetes Catwalk.

Figuratively, or not, we wear our own painful heels, every day... and we walk down our own long, mirrored corridors, on our own slick flooring, trying hard to "elegantly" strut our stuff. Trying hard to seem every bit the poised people we were meant to be. It's really not an easy walk... and frankly, some of us seem to do it with so much more ease than others. (But boy, if the shoes could talk! I'm sure they'd tell another story...)

The diabetes catwalk is probably, by far, one of the hardest things I have ever had to do. A painful walk, in painful shoes... while facing myself in the mirror, down a long corridor. Facing the mirror; facing the music. Facing a life long, seemingly endless journey.

You and I... We will never wear the same shoes. And we were never meant to, but in a way, we do. We wear the shoes of faith, of pride, of endurance, perseverance, of love, of joy... of hope eternal. The shoes of pain; of tears, sometimes, of anger, exhaustion, and grief... of resentment. We walk them down slick corridors, down gravel roads, down inclines, down every path that life imagined... They fit our feet, in their own unique ways... and they are... their own burden.

But my friend, though  your shoes are different, if they walk beside mine down that long, crazy, winding corridor of life... they give me wings. A shoulder to lean on, should I trip. They make that long walk, all the shorter... all the more fabulous, all the more doable. I can be anyone. Do anything; balance on anything. I am, suddenly, the Grande Dame, the fabulous diva, the rockstar... the sexy thang.

Yes, I am proud to be a Blue Heeled Wearing Diva... and I am even prouder, when you are wearing yours, right next to mine. Walk with me. Just for a mile. Or maybe just two. I promise I'll catch you; catch you if you choose.

by Lizmari
http://theangrytype2diabetic.blogspot.com
http://twitter.com//lizzmariposa