I was really please to be able to attend the Diabetic Hope Conference online yesterday. It was so refreshing to see people discussing complications. I have been so very frustrated by the lack of communication about complications amongst bloggers. I still think we are a very long way from being able to freely talk about complications. Here is some of the things I realized yesterday. One is that some of the speakers on the panels seemed very uncomfortable. I have to tell you it is not fun having complications and I find that for most it is out of their comfort zone. I did see others such as George Simmons seem very comfortable speaking about complications. I know during the twitter portion I commented about complications. I know I am little too outspoken about complications but I have never felt so alone as a diabetic until I had complications. I know the saddest part of all of this has been the judgement by other diabetics I have received in forums and online. I will never understand why we are not able to be more supportive of each other regardless of complications or not. I know I already deal with the guilt that I had a couple of bad years in my teen years and will pay a price for that. That guilt will haunt me for the rest of my life and I am okay with that. I know my financial issues in my early twenties and making choices dealing with health care was incredibly difficult and also played a part.
There was some responses to my tweets yesterday that reason some bloggers do not talk about complications is fear of losing health insurance or fear of losing jobs. I know my employer is quite large so I can freely discuss complications with very little issue in that area. I know of several type 1's who work for the same employer and some of them have complications. I know that my insurance companies is aware of my complications because of medical billing codes and other types of Dr.'s I am seeing on a regular basis. I know fear is always an issue when blogging about issues such as complications. I am all for talking about these issues because I feel like someone else will be struggling with the same issues and if I can help share my experiences I am more than willing. I also realized that anyone of us could get hit with a complication at any point in the process and it can happen very quickly. I know I have never judged others because of complications because I have learned along the way that sometimes doing the best you can you can still get complications. I have sadly seen people two or three years in get complications that are kids and it's not because the kid had bad A1c's or blood sugars but I believe that their body just does not deal well with diabetes. I have seen others who are 50's years in complication free who did not test for 12 years. My conclusion is that avoiding complications is not guaranteed and you can only do your best with where you are at. I hope less and less people will get complications but it would be nice someday to not be as judged by people who understand especially since the general public can be very judgmental. Thank you for letting me vent. I have been wanting to talk about this for a while but feel like today is the right time.
There was some responses to my tweets yesterday that reason some bloggers do not talk about complications is fear of losing health insurance or fear of losing jobs. I know my employer is quite large so I can freely discuss complications with very little issue in that area. I know of several type 1's who work for the same employer and some of them have complications. I know that my insurance companies is aware of my complications because of medical billing codes and other types of Dr.'s I am seeing on a regular basis. I know fear is always an issue when blogging about issues such as complications. I am all for talking about these issues because I feel like someone else will be struggling with the same issues and if I can help share my experiences I am more than willing. I also realized that anyone of us could get hit with a complication at any point in the process and it can happen very quickly. I know I have never judged others because of complications because I have learned along the way that sometimes doing the best you can you can still get complications. I have sadly seen people two or three years in get complications that are kids and it's not because the kid had bad A1c's or blood sugars but I believe that their body just does not deal well with diabetes. I have seen others who are 50's years in complication free who did not test for 12 years. My conclusion is that avoiding complications is not guaranteed and you can only do your best with where you are at. I hope less and less people will get complications but it would be nice someday to not be as judged by people who understand especially since the general public can be very judgmental. Thank you for letting me vent. I have been wanting to talk about this for a while but feel like today is the right time.
Tarra, thank you so much for taking time to watch the conference. I hope it was valuable (sounds like it was).
ReplyDeleteI very much agree that we need to be able to talk about some of these hard things, just like you say, to help anyone else who may be going through something similar.
Thanks Scott. I love the fact that you have a conference about complications because I think we all can learn and grow by discussing complications. I can't wait to hear next years conference.
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