The second annual "No-D Day" was Friday, 7 October. I missed it in preparation for Yom Kippur.

This is the second year that the diabetes online community has dedicated a day specifically to writing about things other than, um, diabetes. Let's face it: most of the time our posts are so full of highs, lows, food diaries, d-meetups, medication schedules, glucose tests, and so on that we tend to lose site that behind those walls of figures sit real people. People with parents, spouses or partners, sometimes children, sometimes furkids, jobs, homes (we hope!), and a whole range of interests beyond the latest FDA letter drive for an iPhone-mounted glucometer or a low-suspend pump.

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Several of the posts coming back from the Children With Diabetes annual Friends for Life conference (FFL) have likened this gathering of beta-less buddies to a traveling circus, a family reunion, and the sitcom Cheers, in whose eponymous bar "everybody knows your name" -- except that in the case of FFL, "everybody knows what it's like to live with type 1 diabetes". The effect, even without the Disneyification (FFL is always held at Disney World), is a Magic Kingdom of Diabetes. It makes sense: the event promoters are (and need to be) familiar with the condition, and the property managers need to be aware of -- and capable of handling -- a large, temporary influx of people who all have the same, or similar, "special needs". (READ MORE)

I'll admit: I'm not the most regular contributor to the Diabetes Social Media (#dsma) Wednesday-night Twitter chats, and I don't always get the time to tune into the Thursday-night BlogTalkRadio program (or listen to the archive), but when Cherise announced the first DSMA Blog Carnival, I figured I really should chime in. The problem is the topic: "The Most Awesome Thing I've Done Despite Diabetes". I haven't done awesome things despite diabetes, but rather because of it.

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The dLife weekly poll question this week focuses on diabetes and traveling, and asks: “Does diabetes keep you from traveling?”

My answer: “No Way! Have diabetes. Will travel!”

Type 2 diabetes does not keep me from traveling; neither does congestive heart failure. In fact, I have done more traveling in the last year and a half than I had in several years prior to my diagnosis. The only real limitation that I have is I can’t fly because of my heart. Honestly, though, that really doesn’t bother me at all, because I prefer road trips to flying. Driving may take longer, but it allows for a slower pace, and provides the opportunity to see things that might have been missed by flying.

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How many times have you been talking to someone about your diabetes diagnosis, and had them respond by saying the following: "You don't look sick!"?

And how many of you have ever rattled off a list of medical conditions to someone, only to have them say "You're too young to have that much wrong with you!"?

I'd be willing to bet just about every one with diabetes or any other invisible illness has heard those lines at some point.  I certainly have.  Admittedly, I find them rather annoying.

Some days, I don't even acknowledge those comments, because I just don't have it in me to deal with them.  Other days, however, I'm not so passive.

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From time to time, a heated discussion will erupt around the terms and phrases "prediabetes", "borderline diabetes", and "beating diabetes". The basic gist of the debate goes like this:

Someone will post that he was told he has "borderline diabetes" or "prediabetes", or that he had type 2 diabetes, but since he changed his diet, got off his diabetes medications, and has normal lab results, he has reversed or cured his diabetes.

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