For the last few weeks, our friend Sarah has offered up her dining room and ordered countless pizzas to shore up the troop of teenagers her three daughters recruited to make more than 9,000 blue ribbons in honor of World Diabetes Day, which beats their heroic effort in 2012 . Tomorrow morning, they’ll descend on district classrooms, sharing this video they made about diabetes awareness.
World Diabetes Day 2013 with Caring Chain from Andrew Morrow on Vimeo.
Here’s something Virginia wrote about what it’s like to live with Type 1:
My theory about having diabetes is it’s like a conjoined twin. It’s always with me even when I don’t want it to be. I tell people, you have it, you don’t like it, but you have to deal with it.
My family is really open and not shy about diabetes. I see some of my friends hide their pumps or checkers. I don’t mind telling people about diabetes when they look at my technology. This week someone called us from a newspaper to interview us about everything we’re doing for World Diabetes Day and I told her my conjoined twin theory. She didn’t know very much about Type 1 diabetes. Most people don’t.
It’s fun having everyone get excited about World Diabetes Day. It makes me feel like I don’t have to keep diabetes a secret because the day is all about it and me. When I show friends or groups how I check my number they all think I’m really brave. One day, my sister’s friends added up that I’ve had about 20,000 pokes in my fingers when you add it up.
I want a cure to get rid of diabetes. I wish I never had to check my number again. Or get a pump change because it hurts having a needle poking through my flesh. Literally. Not everyone can say they get a needle stuck in their arm for 10 days. And when I’m high I’m starving but I can’t eat. When I can’t eat it feels horrible. When I get a cure my fingers will finally get a break.