Deciding to start this blog almost 10 years ago has totally changed my life. It has provided me so many opportunities that I wouldn’t have had if I didn’t start it. One example is the ability to meet and talk with people who live with other chronic conditions.
For so many years, I was only surrounded with others who were living with diabetes. Well, after I started blogging, not before, because that’s one of the primary reasons why I started to write in the first place. So, when I thought about chronic diseases, I really just thought about diabetes and how the diabetes world works.
It wasn’t until I started meeting people with other diseases that I was really able to open up my mind and start thinking about my own disease in a different manner. It allowed me to be open minded about new disease management techniques and questions to ask my doctors. It also made me realize that as someone with type 1 diabetes, I might actually be at risk for some of these other diseases that I see others writing and talking about.
I would start to learn more about certain diseases and conditions because if I was at risk for them, I want to know to warning signs of them. Sort of like I wish I knew the symptoms of diabetes that I was living with for 2 months before I was sent to the ER.
There is a lot to learn from other communities and I think there are a lot of people in the diabetes community that have reached out to other communities to try and figure those things out. For example, the AIDS community has been able to do so much by speaking up and sticking together. Healthcare in general is such a hot topic right now and people from all disease communities have come together to fight together and that’s just awesome to see.
It’s great to see events like the HealtheVoices conference that is happening this month. People from all different kinds of conditions, diseases, backgrounds, nationalities, etc. are meeting together. These type of platforms are where some of the best ideas and collaborations come from. That’s just my opinion for what it’s worth.
I will not be attending HealtheVoices but I will definitely be following along with the hashtag #HealtheVoices17 from April 21-23.I will not be attending HealtheVoices but I will be following along with the hashtag #HealtheVoices17 from April 21-23. Click To Tweet
Have you had experiences with speaking to people from other health communities and if so, what were you able to learn from them that helped in your diabetes management or advocacy efforts?
HealtheVoices 2016 was fantastic. I wish I was able to attend again this year but had to pass because of a broken ankle. Regardless I have found such wonderful opportunities in other communities.