D Blog Week, Day 1: Fired Up

This week I’ll be participating in D Blog week.  Today’s topic: “Let’s kick off Diabetes Blog Week by talking about the diabetes causes and issues that really get us fired up.”

There are a lot of things to be passionate about...things that directly affect our diabetic life and beyond.  And obviously, I have opinions about all of them, I share them here all of the time.  

My home.  My soapbox.

But the one thing that bothers me the most, is that people are still dying from misdiagnoses.  Adults and children alike.

Children are (barely) walking into Doctor’s offices and are being told they have the flu.

Adults are told they have high blood sugar and are given pills, on the assumption that they must have Type 2 Diabetes.

People with sudden onset Type 1 are rushed to hospitals, and instead of getting the care they need, they are getting medicines to mask the symptoms…and once it’s all figured out?  Sometimes it’s too late.

What is the answer?

Education.

If I could wish a wish, (and that wish couldn’t be for a cure,) I would wish that there was a program for people like you, and people like me (us) to go and speak at continuing education events for Pediatricians, General Physicians, Emergency Room Doctors and Nurses alike. 

I would tell them our story.  How my baby was almost lost, even though I brought him into the doctor 4 times preceding his diagnosis.

I would tell them that we were in the Emergency Room for over 6 hours before anyone even suggested that he had Type 1 Diabetes.

I would tell them in that six hours my child had seizures and his body was shutting down from severe DKA…that he almost died because no one could even fathom that a tiny 14lb eight month old could have diabetes.

I would tell them how Type 1 Diabetes is on the rise…startlingly so.  Scarily so.  Devastatingly so.

I would tell them one blood sugar stick could save a life.  And I would beg them not to label an adult or child Type 2 until the proper blood tests have been done.

If I could have a soapbox in every hospital, in every doctor’s office…I would gladly take it.

There are people dying that don’t have to die.

There are families in complete devastation that didn't have to be devastated.

One finger stick.  Followed by a blood test if the blood sugar number is not in normal range.

Simple things change everything.

We need a venue to tell physicians our story.

And we need one now.