Hope

It's blue circle day. The symbol was adopted in 2007 by the United Nations to represent worldwide unity in the fight against diabetes. Progress has been made since World Diabetes Day's inception, including better technology, increased awareness, and more organizations at work to help people with diabetes. Those building blocks of progress give me hope.

I even catch myself thinking about the end-game for this whole diabetes thing. It's quite possible that within the thus-far elusive 10 year window my daughter will be able to go about her business with little to no concern about diabetes. The advent of a true artificial pancreas now seems inevitable. Smart insulin and other pharmaceutical advances will make life simpler and safer for people with all types of diabetes. There are an increasing number of paths towards biological cure therapies. There is a light at the end of the tunnel. I have hope for my child.

Yet for too many people that light is a mere glimmer, if they can see it at all. Parents are wondering how they'll afford the next vial of insulin. Children in third world countries are travelling hundreds of miles to diabetes clinics. Grandparents are choosing between food and prescriptions. Families are suffering physically and emotionally because they do not have access to even the most basic diabetes care: a knowledgeable physician, a glucometer with enough supplies, and the pharmaceuticals they need.

So for me the question becomes, what needs to happen so that all of us are really united in that blue circle of diabetes, so that all of us can have hope? I can't wrap my answer up in a tidy bow for you today, but I can tell you that there is no shortage of organizations at work on behalf of people with diabetes here in the US and around the world:

International Diabetes Federation

JDRF Advocacy

Diabetes Patient Advocacy Coalition

Diabetes Advocates

American Diabetes Association Advocacy


These organizations and many more (if I've left out one you feel passionately about, feel free to comment below) are finding ways to provide hope for those for whom diabetes is a hardship in ways many of us can only imagine. If World Diabetes Day Resolutions are a thing, then I resolve to find another way to be involved this year in advocating for the basic diabetes needs of all people with diabetes to be met. Everyone with diabetes deserves to have hope.

WDD 2014: A Picture's Worth A Thousand Words

That's it.

Walking. Again.

Below are excerpts from the letter I emailed and facebooked to our friends and family last week:

This year marks the 10th year our family has walked for JDRF.  Our first walk was in Boston, 11 months after she was diagnosed.  We walked 3 miles through Boston in the pouring rain carrying a 23 month old who refused to sit in her stroller.  Despite all of that, it was an incredible day.  People lined the banks of the Charles River as far as we could see in either direction. They were all there because they knew what we'd found out over the past year.  Living with diabetes is painful and challenging.  They were hopeful that the research supported by JDRF would improve the lives of people with diabetes. That hope was contagious, and started us on our journey towards supporting this organization.

I'll spare you the paragraph about the how crappy it is to live with diabetes, and the one about the kinds of research JDRF supports. If you're reading this, you have at least a rudimentary knowledge of both.

Ten years is a long time.  Some of you have been asked ten times now to join us and/or donate to our walk team.  Maybe you're tired of being asked.  We're certainly tired of asking. Yet we hope you've caught a little bit of our hope that JDRF is making progress, and that one day you'll be able to join us in saying that we made our hope for a cure a reality.

Writing the walk letter gets harder every year.  I truly am tired of asking people to give money to JDRF.  I'm tired of organizing the walk-day logistics.  I'm tired of how difficult it is for friends to participate because they're overloaded with fall sports, activities and competing charitable commitments. I'm tired of setting aside the day every year on our calendar.  Every September, I find it harder to begin again.

Then I remember that I'm tired of the aforementioned crappiness of living with diabetes. So another walk season commences.

Before I know it, nice things start to happen.  People donate generously. Someone who hasn't walked with us before is able to come. An encouraging note comes along with a donation.

I begin to realize again that I'm not alone.  While these people aren't in the trenches with me every day, they care.  Before I know it, I begin to feel a bit of that hope I artfully described in my letter. 

It feels good.