Our Experience

Lets kick off the week by talking about why we are here, in the diabetes blog space. What is the most important diabetes awareness message to you? Why is that message important for you, and what are you trying to accomplish by sharing it on your blog? (Thank you, Heather Gabel, for this topic suggestion.)

Diabetes blog week is here!  This past year has flown by and outside of two kids still living I feel like we haven't done much.  I know we actually have it's just difficult to see exactly what sometimes.  Anyway, here's todays prompt and check in again tomorrow.  I'll be here all week!


Hmmm, what is the most important diabetes awareness message to me?  Why is it important?  What am I trying to accomplish by sharing on my blog?  I started writing this blog after Sugar Bear was diagnosed.  It originally was to help me heal emotionally.  To wrap my brain around my thoughts and try and make sense of everything.  His diagnosis was a traumatic experience.  It hurt.  We grieved.  We felt so alone and scared.  It blind-sided us and we could have easily lost him.  Many children (and adults) don't survive or don't survive intact a misdiagnosis and ensuing severe DKA.  Somehow we got lucky.  Somehow.  Somehow I got to keep my baby.  Why?  How?  These thoughts floated through my heart and brain in the weeks after our experience.  How could we have prevented what we went through?  What would it take to keep someone else experiencing what we did?  And while I was struggling with these questions and getting our feet back under us I was exploring and researching the internet and stumbled upon the diabetes online community (D.O.C.).  Wow, a club had I known existed I never would've wanted to join but so thankful they were there.  They had been where I was.  There was a well worn path.  They welcomed me and lifted me up.  I found friends.  I found people who understood.  And with it I found my voice.

I blog our experience because it is still fresh.  We haven't been at this that long.  And maybe our experience will be a lifeboat for those newly diagnosed.  And maybe our experience will educate those that know nothing or very little of this life.  And maybe our experience will change the world.  That is what I want most of all.  I don't want our community to lose another Kycie, or David, or Hailey, or Reegan from misdiagnosis.  I want awareness and education.  I want to teach and help.  I want the world at large to know this isn't caused by diet (not even sugar causes it) and that those comments hurt.  And they are misguided.  I want pediatricians to take parents seriously when they know something is wrong but because the parent doesn't have the extensive knowledge we rely on the professional to figure it out and it's not okay to tell us it's just a virus/strep/etc...because those brush offs do cause harm and in the medical world that is not okay.  I want TV shows and advertisers and journalists to get it right because the world is listening and you are educating even if it is wrong information.  I want to encourage, to educate, to advocate, and to continue to find my way because my children and yours are important.  They are our world, our future.  They deserve our best.