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Category: Diabetes Awareness

Diabetes Education in America

Chris Stocker 3 Comments

Today’s post is coming at you very late at night because of some hosting and WordPress issues that I was having, but it seems that everything has been settled, let’s hope.  My post for today is to speak about diabetes education in America.  The main part that I want to focus on is the lack of diabetes education that is out there.  I have written about diabetes education in the past and still feel strongly about the need for it.  Tomorrow, I have a special guest post from Hope Warshaw with more information about diabetes education.

Here is my thought on diabetes education.  How do we expect people with diabetes or who may be at risk for diabetes to change their lifestyles for a healthier life if they don’t know what they are to do?  When somebody is rushed to the ER when they are first diagnosed they get hit with so much information and then may have one or two follow up visits with a diabetes educator.  And then that’s it.  Maybe their insurance doesn’t pay for it, or they don’t have any insurance at all, or they can’t afford to go see a dietician or psychologist or any other form of diabetes educator.  How are they supposed to make the decisions that they need.

One simple way is by providing easier access to this diabetes education.  The hard part is, how do we do this?  How do we get insurance companies to cover the costs of dietician visits or diabetes educator visits.  But what if your insurance does cover a Certified Diabetes Educator, but you can’t get an appointment for 6 months because there is only one CDE in your area and they are booked.  Guess your health just has to go on a 6 month long vacation right?  Uhhh…I don’t think so.

Some of the best diabetes education I ever received in my life came from a non-CDE, just a diabetes educator in general.  Of course there needs to be guidelines, you can’t just have any Joe Schmoe off the street coming in and giving diabetes education, but there just has to be a way that somebody who can provided information about diabetes is allowed to.  How do we do this?  I don’t know exactly.

This is exactly why I am looking for help from people out here.  I am interested in forming some sort of diabetes education advocates group.  I tweeted tonight about what we can do more for advocacy and one idea that I mentioned was that, it’s great to have as many people advocating as possible, but I think that if there were certain groups of people with more of a passion about one aspect than the other, more can be accomplished this way.

If you are interested in joining some sort of weekly, bi-weekly, monthly chat, Skype call, anything, please let me know.

Remember, tomorrow Hope Warshaw.

Type 1 Diabetes Day – T1D

Chris Stocker 2 Comments

So today is November 1, 2011. It is a day of many special things. There are some birthday’s to be celebrated today, that is taking up some of my time in reading blogs and writing posts, today is the beginning of Diabetes Awareness month, and it is also the first Type 1 Day (T1D).

I received an e-mail from JDRF a few weeks ago talking about T1D, but I still was not exactly sure what it was going to be all about and what the campaign was going to be to help spread awareness. All I knew is that it was a day to spread the differences between Type 1 and Type 2. I think that it is great to have specific days dedicated to individual diabetes related “things” throughout the entire month. I like little themes to make up a larger one.

I received a little foam finger in the mail the other day from JDRF that explained it was to be used to “give diabetes the finger.” Genius, I love it. I love giving diabetes the finger. You can take that for whatever meaning you want, but they encouraged us to take pictures with the foam finger. So you will be seeing one photo a day either on the blog or on Twitter with the foam finger. It is almost like the concept of Flat Stanley where kids are to take pictures with him in different regions of the world and report on where he was and what he did there.

This T1D campaign may not be the best idea this year, but with it in it’s first year, I think there are always ways to improve going forward. I think the concept and idea is great. JDRF has been hearing from adult type 1’s for a long time that we are left out, they don’t do anything for us, etc. Well here is a perfect campaign and example on how they are gearing something towards adults. I love the fact that national is being receptive to our voices, even if it took a long time. If they could only get my local chapter to be more receptive.

They created a video to promote T1D, by introducing you to a girl named Meg. I think that the video uses an older, World War 2 style type of campaign. I like retro. Here is the video below:

To wrap up today’s post of many to come this month, I just want to say that I am honored to share my birthday with a new Type 1 day. I see big things for this day in the future.

JDRF Not Giving Me the Time I’m Requesting

Chris Stocker

JDRF not being responsiveI have been mentioning lately that my local chapters of the ADA and JDRF have not been very responsive to me. I have been sending emails and tweeting to them trying to get their attention. My local JDRF chapter is usually pretty good with responding to me but not much gets done because things have to be approved by the area manager and it seems to stop there every time. It makes me mad because I know that Jeffrey Brewer is receptive to the ideas that I and others share because I have spoken with him directly about it. This is one of the obstacles of taking the online world offline.

I would really like to work with them for World Diabetes Day but it’s tough to plan things when it is a one way conversation. At times I just think that people don’t see or get the big picture.

Don’t even get me started on the Diabetes Hero video. I emailed them multiple times about it and no response. They could get a $10,000 donation and no response. I know that a lot of chapters just don’t have the resources because they have 2-3 people trying to do the job on 10-15. I’ve offered to help them with some of their social strategies and outreach but no response. This is what I do for a living and I’m willing to help them for free, it’s almost like a donation. But like I said before, I don’t think that they get it.

Maybe there needs to be some form of communication from the top down explaining to all the local chapters that there will be some people contacting them and talking about the DOC and they should listen to what they have to say.

Luckily, there are a few others in this area that are as passionate about this as I am and hopefully we can all work together to get things done.  Mike Hoskins has provided me with some great details and information on ways that him and his area have been able to form a great relationship with their local JDRF chapter.  I would love to hear from everybody on what has worked and has not worked in getting more done with your local chapter.

Have a great day everybody.

Diabetes Events in 2012

Chris Stocker

I started thinking about some of my goals for 2012, diabetes and professional goals.  One of my goals is to attend more diabetes events and shows.  This year I went to the JDRF Walk in Boca Raton, the ADA walk in Fort Lauderdale, the Roche Social Media Summit and that was it.  Next year I want to go to ADA Scientific Sessions, Friends for Life, Roche Social Summit again, AADE, and many others.  If I could go to 1 a month, that would be AWESOME.  There are so many different events that it is tough for me to keep up with all the dates, the costs and just to know about the ones that are out there.

There are events going on that I don’t even know about, and if they are things that I could possibly attend, then I would love to know.  So here is my question.  Is there currently a list of diabetes related events taking place in 2012?  If there is not currently a place, then please, let’s use this as a resource for the DOC and add in the comments below the event and date (at last the month), and then we can have a one-stop collection of all events.

Please pass along and share.  Hope to meet more of you wonderful people in 2012.

Diabetes Art Day Part 1

Chris Stocker

I didn’t do Diabetes Art Day last year because I haven’t done any sort of art since like 8th grade.  I don’t like art, because I’m not that creative and I just don’t have the patience for it.  However, I am going to try and do something throughout the day.  This post is going up in the morning, but I will post something later today / tonight as soon as I figure out what kind of art that I can create for Diabetes Art Day.

Steve Jobs, Jimmy Valvano and Diabetes

Chris Stocker 2 Comments

The agency that I work at has a pretty large free library of business related books, so I have definitely been taking advantage of this lately.  I like to read these business books because they give me a lot of motivation, not just for the business world, but in my personal and diabetes world as well.  I just recently finished, The Presentation Secrets of Steve Jobs.

This book was awesome.  Let me give a quick background.  About 3-4 years ago I could not stand Apple.  I hated everything Apple, I hated Google, I hated all that hip stuff, I thought you were a douche bag just because you owned it.  Well, I purchased an iPhone 2.5 years ago and my entire life changed after that.  I still own an iPhone, an iPad, a MacBook Pro, and am purchasing an iMac very shortly.  I am now part of the Apple culture.  And with that, Steve Jobs is now one of my idols.  The book is about his presentation skills and how powerful his presentations are.  When he speaks, people listen.  He gains people’s attention, their lives stop to hear what he has to say next.  There were a few quotes that stood out to me in this book.  The first one was when Steve Jobs had said, “Doing the right thing can never be the wrong thing.”

At first, I was like…well yea, duh, if it’s right then it can’t be wrong.  But then when I thought about it more, doing what you feel is the right thing to do does not always turn out with the best outcome, but that does not mean that it still was not the right thing to do.  I related this to my diabetes by saying that eating ice cream at my niece’s birthday party is the right thing to do, no matter the outcome.  Testing my blood sugar and eating healthy foods is the right thing to do.  Even if my blood sugar spikes after a perfect meal, I am not going to let it get me down, because I did the right thing, and that can never be wrong.

The next quote that moved me, which there are plenty of quotes similiar to this, especially from Gary Vaynerchuk (this is a link to a post on my other blog about why I was fired because of my passion for owning my own business several years ago).  But Jobs had said, “I’d rather live my passion then be buried a rich man, if you are not happy, make a change.”  This doesn’t just go for money and wealth, but it relates to my health as well.  You know what, I have been extremely unhappy with the way my health has been going down hill, and 2 weeks ago, I made a serious change in my life and I have lost weight, and I can see the differences in my body.  I wasn’t happy, so I made a change.  I stopped bitching and complaining and hoping for a change, and did something about it.

Finally, my last piece of motivation for this post has nothing to do with this book, but something that I go back to all the time, whenever I need a boost of motivation is this amazing video.  Please, it is 5 minutes, just watch it:


And for me personally, where he says cancer, I say diabetes.

Please Help My Co Worker’s Cousin – Diagnosed at Age 7

Chris Stocker

I wrote last week how my company was nice enough to give my blog a shot out in the company newsletter that goes out every Friday. If people didn’t know I was diabetic, then they do now. It is great to hear so many people telling me that they were inspired by the blog and that they didn’t know these things about diabetes. I respond with thanks and thats why I do this.

Yesterday I was having a conversation with one of my co workers and diabetes got brought and she said, “My 7 year old cousin just found out he is diabetic 🙁 “. Of course there is going to be that sad face at first, but I know that we can all help turn that frown upside down and help out his family.

I asked her to share my blog and email with them so they can get introduced to the DOC and learn all the great information and support that is online. I am going to ask my co worker to share this post with her family so I would greatly appreciate if you could please leave some words of encouragement and share and have others leave comments as well. I want to make sure that they get all the infomation they need. I was diagnosed at 19 and I dont have a child with diabetes so I would appreciate if would leave comments.

Thanks again everybody.

JDRF Promise to Remember Me Campaign

Chris Stocker

Next month I will be visiting and touring the Diabetes Research Institute for the first time.  I have been wanting to do this for so damn long, but haven’t had much of an opportunity to do so until now.  My parents are coming down to visit next month so I thought that it would be a perfect opportunity to finally take the tour and take my parents along with me.  They will enjoy it a lot.  Amanda will also be going to.

I can’t wait to take pictures and videos and report back on everything that I see in there.  I have heard nothing but awesome things about this tour and I am so excited!  Did I mention before that I am excited?

On to some other news.  I received an e-mail from the JDRF Promise to Remember campaign today because I had signed up to volunteer to be a campaign coordinator, but unfortunately, well maybe not unfortunately, but somebody else has already taken this position.  They also sent over a list of events that our local Members of Congress will be at during their August recess.  This is awesome, I can’t wait to try and get to some of these events and attempt to get 5-10 minutes worth of of the Congress person’s time.

If you would like to see this list also and see find out where your Congress reps will be during their recess send me an e-mail or just send me a note in a comment or on the contact me page.

Way to go JDRF, thumbs up on this one.  Way to help.

Appreciation is Nice

Chris Stocker 2 Comments

What are the rewards for the things that we do?  There are a lot of rewards  that come with blogging and helping other diabetics out.  That is one of the main reasons that I continue to do this.  It also helps me cope with any issues that I may have, but I know that it is helping others too.  From time to time it is great to see physical examples of the appreciation of the work that you do.

So, now let me get to the point of this post.  Every Friday at my job they send out a company newsletter highlighting some of the work that we have been doing for clients as well as spotlighting several other fun things.  The other day in the cafeteria I was talking to the head of our Marketing and Communications team who supervises the weekly newsletter about diabetes and my blog and some of the goals and initiatives that I have with my blog.  He was very excited about it and told me to send him the links to the blog and Facebook page.

Yesterday when I read the newsletter, this is what was included (please click to view larger):

Quote – ” We know that we all work with amazing people, but this is just awesome. Did you know that Chris Stocker is a national leader when it comes to advocating for people with diabetes? He has an informative and motivating blog and Facebook page, so please check them out and give him some “like” and re-tweeting support. Great work Chris – you’re an inspiration to us all!”

Diabetic Blog

 

This is just awesome.  It doesn’t matter that it was spotlighting me, but the fact that it was spotlighting diabetes and how diabetes awareness was spread to over 150 people instantly with an e-mail.  This makes you feel that what you are doing is well worth it and that you are accomplishing things.

By the way, #dsma got some face time too with the banner.

 

What We Can Do About Diabetes Education

Chris Stocker 1 Comment

The other day I wrote a post about who is certified to be a diabetes educator and I received a lot of great feedback from the DOC and also some great comments on the post.  I appreciated those that commented with their information about the certification process.  Also, good luck to Lauren if she decides to become a CDE.  Today I wanted to touch on a different subject related to diabetes education, and that is the lack of it.  I had wrote about this a long time ago, maybe two years ago, not sure?  The lack of diabetes education is scary.  I have attended sessions where a doctor will sit down with 10 patients and go over their charts in front of everybody and try and give education and advice that way.  That is way too difficult and is not fair to the individual because their diabetes is not being individually treated, but just the disease as a whole.

Every single person that is newly diagnosed must have access to diabetes education.  They may only get a limited amount of time with a certified diabetes educator because there just are not enough in this country.  So how are they going to get answers to their questions at 2:30 a.m. on a Saturday night?  I know, I know, pick me, pick me.

The DOC

No, not this one…..

This one…. (not the entire DOC just the only pic I have from San Diego Roche Social Summit.

Roche Social Media Summit 2011

This is why it is so important for the online DOC to become just the DC.  I can already see a lot of you beginning to take the “O” of out DOC.  I think that the presentation that was just given at AADE is going to be huge.  I don’t know how well it went, I haven’t had much of a chance to read up on any posts or any feedback on it, I’m sure it made an impact.  If it didn’t at that exact time, then it definitely will begin to.

So how do we make sure that newly diagnosed and those that just don’t really know much about diabetes or want to know more about their diabetes get the education that they need?  There are several things that we can do:

  1. Get to a point whre CDE’s and HCPs are willing to give their patients information about the DOC.
  2. Online diabetes sessions with CDE’s (would require an hour or so of CDE time to do an online training session with as many people as possible)
  3. Get additional funding and aide for those that cannot afford to go see a CDE

Those are just a few ideas that pop into my head quickly.  I do not have the answers, but I sure don’t mind trying to be part of the solution to the problem however.  We have a lot of intelligent people in this community so I am sure among all of us, it can be done.  Who wants in and trying to get something done?

Have an awesome Saturday and rest of weekend everybody.