Dear Friends and Family

Dear Friends and Family,

As some of you may know already, I have a blog.
This is it, and I'm pretty proud of it.

I know that some of you come here ocassionally to read about my life with diabetes, and that for some of you, this is probably your first time here. This post is written for you specifically, though, regardless of whether it's your first time here or 20th time here.

I want to tell you a little more about The Diabetes Online Community (otherwise known at The Diabetes OC). When I first started getting some signs of diabetic complications last year, I did what most anyone would do these days: I desperately searched the web for information about diabetes. It's hard to believe, but I had never really done this much before. In my search I came across a group of bloggers who called themselves the Diabetes Online Community. I read some posts that hit so close to home, it was shocking. For the first time in my life really, I didn't feel alone with my disease.

I don't know how many bloggers there were sharing their stories about life with diabetes and offering tips and support and encouragement and sympathy for others in similar sitations when I found the Diabetes OC, but there are currently over 140 folks doing this, and I am one of them. The people I have "met" here are smart, funny, brave, interesting, respectful, supportive, and diverse. And yet dispite this diversity, we all share in our daily struggle with diabetes.

Anyway, November is National Diabetes Awareness Month, and today is something called D-blogger day. This is a day in which folks in the Diabetes Online Community make an effort to connect with each other through their blogs or to spread awareness about their life with diabetes.

When I first started blogging, I was very shy

A question for the OC

I'm curious: How open with friends and family are you about having a blog? Is this a place for your alter-ego to run wild, or do you share it with everyone you know?

Currently, the only strict line I have is not telling people I work with that I have a blog (even though there are a few that I'm pretty close with, and I feel like I could share it with them).

close

about it and didn't tell but a handful of people about what I was doing. Slowly, I became more comfortable with sharing these details with the world and I have slowly told more and more people about my blog. Today, I sent out an email to an even broader group of friends to let them know about my blog. In doing so, I would like to invite them (you?) to read through my previous posts if you'd like, or to check in here ocassionally to see what's going on in my diabetic life.

But I'd also like to point out a few other things that fellow bloggers have either written themselves or have pointed others in the Online Community to. Most of us who read these blogs regularly have seen these already, but more people need to see them, and I'd like to share them with you.

These are poignant examples of what life with diabetes is like that I can't even come close to matching with my own words. Please take some time to check these out.

• This is a photo collection entitled "A Lifetime of Diabetes" by Teresa Ollila. It is mostly portraits of kids living with diabetes and it is tremendously moving.



• Here is a video by a ten year old kid named Calvin and what his life with diabetes is like. In all of 7 minutes, he portrays the day-to-day challenges of life with diabetes.



• Ada writes a blog called "Aiming for Grace." She's a diabetic with a sense of style. For her 20th anniversary with diabetes, she made herself a book. She has a photograph and an insight for 20 things that life with diabetes has taught her. It is beautiful, and I encourage you to check it out.



• This is a post by Kerri Morrone written last year on D-blog day. She is the author of the blog "Six Until Me." This was the first diabetes blog I found in the OC, and this post, "She Still Smiles", is a touching story of how she became diabetic, the challenges it placed in front of her, and the sense of strength she gained from it.



• And last, but not least, this is a recent post by Sarah, a woman with diabetes who runs, loves to cook, and has two children. Gracie, her 3-year-old daughter, has just been diagnosed with diabetes and took her first insulin shot this week. Contemplating the challenges of daily blood glucose monitoring, insulin shots, carbohydrate counting, balancing exercise, and stress, and the fear of complications for one's own is a difficult task, but contemplating these for one's own child is unimaginably difficult.

Like Sarah points out: Insulin is not a cure. And although most of us have been jadded by the repeated promises of a cure being "just around the corner" or "within the next 5-years", we are certainly most hopeful for a cure to be found in Gracie's lifetime.

Thanks,
Kevin