National Diabetes Month…how you can help

November is National Diabetes Month.

When Mackenna was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes in 2013, my list of life goals grew by two.

1. Learn how to manage her diabetes well, and teach her to do the same, so that she can live a long and healthy life.
2. Educate anyone who will listen about the truth of type 1 diabetes.

There’s a movie in the theaters right now that references diabetes being caused by eating too much sugar.  Wrong.

I have cringed many times while watching TV after hearing a diabetes reference that was just so incorrect.  Ignorant.

I have a lovely friend who is currently educating staff from a chain of movie theaters because her son with type 1 diabetes was not allowed to bring sugar in the form of candy into the theater.  They didn’t know that sugar, for someone with type 1 diabetes, is a medical necessity.

And this week I read a story about a kindergartner who was told by a parent at his class Halloween party that he can’t have juice because he has diabetes.  Wrong.  And to make it worse, when the boy’s mother tried to correct the parent, that ignorant parent told that little boy’s mom that if she lets him have all that sugar, he’s going to end up with his legs amputated!  What?!

See why that second goal is so important?  Not being in the KNOW about a medical condition makes you say and do things that are not only incorrect, but have the potential to scare a child or hurt someone’s feelings.  Living with type 1 diabetes is hard enough.  Ignorance makes it a whole lot harder.

So as I share throughout the month on the blog and on my facebook page, will you do me a favor?  Will you keep an open mind?  Will you consider the idea that perhaps what you know about diabetes isn’t accurate?  Will you learn something new?  Do it for that little boy.  Do it for Mackenna.