Lessons from world diabetes day

Diabetes Awareness vs Education

Nov the 14th was world diabetes day for those who already do not know and I was not surprised by how much communities and individuals do to commemorate the day. I wish it would have gotten me off work but boss wasn’t buying my schtick about it being important to me than thanksgiving and the other holidays.

One of the reason’s we celebrate world diabetes day is to raise awareness to the disease and at this point in the journey we cannot deny that diabetes awareness is at an all time high. More and more people are becoming aware of the disease and its devastating consequences. I used the day as an opportunity to inform a new friend on my diabetes life and what the last 12 years have been for me.

As rumbled on this diabetes crash course, I was somewhat amazed at how little he knew on the disease, while he was aware of diabetes, he still only knew that it had something to do with eating sugar and injecting insulin.

Awareness vs education then becomes the inevitable question

While we have done a good job at raising awareness to diabetes, diabetes education still lags in comparison

I am kind of reminded of the recent balloon boy saga but not for the obvious reasons though.
Its been said that any publicity is good publicity and people will do anything for their 15 minutes of fame.
What they did was not right by any stretch of the imagination and I by no means agree with it but the point I am trying to make happens to be that they will always be synonymous with this event even 20 years from now regardless of what else they do good or bad. What this has to do with awareness is simply this.

I prefer to have an educated diabetic or even non diabetic for that matter, because an informed person will take the necessary right steps when faced with any situation.
Awareness simply comes with its own stigmas and myths that tend to get cemented when someone is faced with a similar situation.

So my next year resolution for world diabetes day includes educating a few more people to the ins and outs of diabetes.
I have a friend who is a diabetes educator and she told me one day that when they do community outreach programs, most of the people she encounters are those who have just been diagnosed and have very little knowledge on diabetes management.
While they knew what the disease was they had no idea what it entailed and the information after diagnosis is so overwhelming.

My lessons for world diabetes day is simply that we should emphasize education as well.
Maybe next year I will throw a tapper wear minus the tapper wear and call it a fiesta for diabetes.

####################################################################################################
Ronald Gregory is a diabetic and a blogger you can follow his works at the poor diabetic blog. which is a resource for those fighting diabetes without the aid of medical coverage. Learn how to manage diabetes frugally and cheaply at http://diabetic-journey.com
####################################################################################################