Featured Blogger of the Week: Sept. 13-20, Post #3

Featured Blogger of the Week: Sept. 13-20
Riva Greenberg , Diabetes Stories
Post # 3

One of the things I do is talk to fellow patients mostly at a support groups and health fairs. I help them learn healthier habits that make diabetes easier to manage and I also dispel the fear and confusion people have about using insulin. But I’m here to tell you about something interesting that happened when I gave my presentation one time.

I was speaking in Buffalo, N.Y. to about 40 patients and for the first time I was double-billed with a diabetes educator. I am not a medical person. The CDE’s speech preceded mine so I leaned back and listened. I heard a solid forty-five minutes of A1cs, blood pressures, weight control, exercise, portion control, and carb-counting…in short, numbers, zones, and target ranges up the wazoo. Where is the humanity in this, I thought? Where is the patient in this? Where is the acknowledgement of the work we do and energy we spend slogging through each day? I saw my purpose was to put it back in our diabetes and talk about how we hold diabetes in our lives.

Taking the stage I shared my own shock and fear upon diagnosis, my subsequent denial, and my early complications. The room quieted. I was, they saw, like them: a soldier in the trenches. I saw the landscape they saw; I tramp through the same dark forest; I look for cover when diabetes rains down upon me or drains me out.

“When you’re so busy testing every day,” I said, “reading labels, counting carbs, and calculating, do you stop to think why you’re doing all this work? Isn’t it to see the grandkids grow up, start that second career, create the best vegetable garden in town, contribute something to the world, or have another million days with your spouse?” Heads nodded and people leaned forward, people actually smiled and eyes lit up. Someone had understood and acknowledged this piece of living with diabetes where their heart resides along with their struggle.

People are dying–literally–to hear their healthcare providers address the emotional issues of living with diabetes. But doctors and CDEs don’t know the experience of living with diabetes if they don’t have it and they haven’t been trained to deal with the psychosocial aspects of chronic illness.

We, however, are in the business of chronic illness. We have life adjustments to make, and we have precious little help to make them. So here are my recommendations: Learn all you can. Appreciate what you hold dear. Pace your efforts and forgive your mistakes. Keep the vision of your ‘best life’ ever-present. And spend more time doing what you love. While we’re living with diabetes, let’s not short-change the “living” part.

Riva Greenberg is the author of "50 Diabetes Myths That Can Ruin Your Life: And The 50 Diabetes Truths That Can Save It" and “The ABCs of Loving Yourself with Diabetes” available in English and Spanish. Riva also speaks to patients and medical professionals. To learn more about Riva’s work and read her blog, visit her web site at www.diabetesstories.com

Featured Blogger of the Week - Sept. 13- 20, Post #2

Featured Blogger of the Week: Sept. 13-20

Riva Greenberg , Diabetes Stories
Post # 2

Viktor Frankl is a psychiatrist who spent years in a concentration camp. While interned he wondered, 'What does it take to persevere and come through such a monumental, tragic experience?' Can there be happiness in the overwhelming miasma of suffering?’ His landmark book, Man's Search for Meaning, answers these questions. Many of Frankl’s insights I find can be translated to living with diabetes. By the way Frankl’s answer is, Yes, we can get through suffering with meaning in our lives.

Of the more than 130 people who have diabetes whom I've interviewed, many actually see diabetes as a gift: an opportunity to become fitter and healthier, to help others and to appreciate what they have in their life. They see diabetes as a wake-up call that reminds them life is short, precious, and comes with no warranty and it’s time to put their dream into play or spend more time enjoying where they are.

One person wrote this to me, “Riva, Two years ago, at age 68, I had a heart attack, a triple bypass and was diagnosed with diabetes all within one week. I'm doing well, have changed my diet and take exercise seriously now. It hasn't been lost on me that I got a second chance at life and believe me I'm not about to squander it. Someone once told me, if you want to live a long life, get yourself a chronic disease to take care of. I didn't think of diabetes as much of a "gift" but you are right, it can be. I'm in better shape now than I have ever been. We all should look at diabetes as a gift − a nuisance and a pain in the neck sometimes, but it really is a gift.”

I figure you can see your diabetes in two ways: 1. Geez, I hate this. It’s not fair. Damn x%$!!! Or, 2. Hmmm…O.K., I’m going to lose those 20 pounds and feel good! What do I really care about? It’s time to make it happen. Wow, I’m smokin’!

After losing my job at 48 I searched for a way to contribute to the world. Step by step that urge created my road to here, helping others with diabetes. Today I’m excited waking every day to add new strokes to this canvas I'm painting – my new diabetes life. I have a deep-seated happiness, and an even deeper desire to be healthy and enjoy the whole ride.

Frankl found that camp survivors who persevered, who looked forward to finding their families again and creating their next great work, were the ones to survive. Being in service to others or a cause, loving someone or something and turning tragedy into triumph are ways to live a meaningful life. So see your diabetes as something to inspire you to get and stay healthy. You may find it will keep you healthier than you ever would have been if you’d never gotten it.

Riva Greenberg is the author of "50 Diabetes Myths That Can Ruin Your Life: And The 50 Diabetes Truths That Can Save It" and “The ABCs of Loving Yourself with Diabetes” available in English and Spanish. Riva also speaks to patients and medical professionals. To learn more about Riva’s work and read her blog, visit her web site at www.diabetesstories.com

Featured Blogger of the Week - Sept. 13- 20, Post #1

Featured Blogger of the Week: Sept. 13-20

Riva Greenberg , Diabetes Stories

Post # 1

Five years ago I was in a Taking Control of Your Diabetes (TCOYD) event and heard a shocking thing. Dr. Bill Polonsky, noted diabetes educator and psychologist, was leading a “Coping with Diabetes” workshop and he asked the 80 or so of us sitting there, “How many of you think diabetes is a leading cause of blindness, kidney disease, heart attack and amputation?” Well, of course, hands flew up across the entire room. “You’re wrong,” he said, “Poorly controlled diabetes is.”

With those words a weight I’d been carrying on my shoulders for three decades believing these complications would inevitably be my fate fell off. And, I had an awakening: What I do matters. I can affect my future health by how I manage my diabetes. From that moment my management got better: I became more diligent in my diet, made a promise to myself to walk every day that I keep every day and test more and correct more. Because I know now it matters.

This awakening also sowed the seeds for the book new in bookstores and online that I just wrote, "50 Diabetes Myths That Can Ruin Your Life: And The 50 Diabetes Truths That Can Save It.” I changed my diabetes management discovering a myth was not true, you owe it to yourself, and your loved ones, to see if you’ve got all the facts straight.

These are the top five myths for many patients:

1) Eating sugar causes diabetes
2) There is one diabetes diet to follow
3) Type 1 diabetes is more serious than type 2
4) If I have to take insulin it’s the beginning of the end or I’ve failed
5) If my diabetes is under control, there’s no need to see my doctor

And here are a few for those of us who think we know everything:

1) I’ve just been diagnosed, I can’t have complications yet!
2) Insulin makes you gain weight
3) I have to lose a lot of weight for my diabetes to improve
4) I can’t ever take a break from dealing with diabetes
5) There is no cure for diabetes

It seems boastful to tell you to go get my book, yet criminal not to because it offers so much value. The book is written from a patient’s point of view, I’m not a medical person, yet 21 outstanding diabetes specialists consulted with me. It contains actionable steps, tips and many stories and “lessons learned” from fellow patients and you can dip in and out wherever you like. We must all be our own health care providers every day – you deserve to know the truth.

Riva Greenberg is the author of "50 Diabetes Myths That Can Ruin Your Life: And The 50 Diabetes Truths That Can Save It" and “The ABCs of Loving Yourself with Diabetes” available in English and Spanish. Riva also speaks to patients and medical professionals. To learn more about Riva’s work and read her blog, visit her web site at www.diabetesstories.com

Featured Blogger of the Week: June 31 - July 6, Post #3

Featured Blogger of the Week: June 31 - July 6

Rachel Baumgartel, Tales of my 30's & Diabetes Daily

Post # 3

A few random thoughts to conclude the week…

Now that it has been four years since my T2 diagnosis, things come a little easier. I know what I should eat and how much I should exercise. I don’t need to test as much as long as trends look promising on my meter. I suppose you could call it a maintenance phase. No signs of complications, A1C levels under 6.0%, and otherwise healthy.

I know that I’ve created positive change in our household. Without my insistence on healthier eating and exercising, my husband might not have become as vigilant as he has been with his own T1 routine since his hypoglycemic seizure in November 2004.

Watching my husband manage his T1 reminds me that I still need to be active in my own diabetes care. It’s not that I’m scared of possible progression of my type 2 in the future, it’s that I want to be in control of my diabetes destiny. If things start to get out of control, I want to nip that in the bud, whether that means medication again or if that means insulin.

I do hope that I can stay in this so-called maintenance phase for quite some time, though.

I feel terribly when I see someone who doesn’t manage his or her diabetes well. I wish I could walk up to them and shake some sense into them. But I don’t. We’ve all had experiences with unsolicited advice and this is one of the worst offenses of the sort.

I can’t change people; I can only help myself (and in some sense, my husband). Of course, if someone reaches out for my help, I would be more than willing to assist. That’s why I blog, that’s why I advocate for people with diabetes.

We talk about cures for our respective conditions, though not very often. While hope is a good thing, we both tend to be more realistic and perhaps more pessimistic. He’s generally at peace with his diabetes, which encourages and allows me to be the same with mine.

Besides, who’s to say that the diseases haven’t already managed to play havoc in our bodies that can’t be reversed in spite of a cure? If there is a cure, who decides who gets it first? These are the questions we ask each other when the discussion turns to the idea of cures. Why, yes, we do wax philosophically…

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