As an informed person with diabetes and an active member of several online diabetes communities, it's important for me to "get out into the real world" and make connections with other people with diabetes and with people and associations whose purpose is to support us medically, psychologically, and socially. In addition to real-life meet-ups with members of my various diabetes online networks, I go to health fairs and community events to make contact, inquire about the state of diabetes-care support and diabetes advocacy programs, and have even given a presentation about how diabetes online communities positively effect the lives and health levels of people living with all types of diabetes. 

As all of you reading are aware, diabetes is a serious condition which, if uncontrolled, will gravely affect one's quality of life. For those with autoimmune diabetes, failure to receive insulin -- or an overdose of insulin at the wrong time -- can kill within hours or days. For all diabetics, not knowing our blood glucose levels, not paying attention to diet and exercise, and not paying attention to our bodies can kill us piece by painful piece.

Those of us who are fortunate enough to have Internet access and good searching and analytical skills are able to read about the latest experiments and hypotheses in the search for the causes of, treatments for -- and hopefully, one day soon, cures for -- all types of diabetes. All of us who join an online diabetes community find ourselves conversing with other people who live every day with the same issues we do: high and low blood sugar levels; finding appropriate foods any time we visit friends or family, or eat out at restaurants; being able to find healthy foods in the supermarket which our families will eat (and being able to pay for them); finding doctors and medical professionals who understand diabetes, our specific types of diabetes, and how our diabetes affects us; issues involving our medications, diabetes-related medical equipment, and testing supplies...

Yet there is so much work that remains to be done. Online communities can't provide that level of support to people who don't have Internet access. Many older people and people in low-income communities don't have computers to get online, don't have public libraries that are accessible to them or their schedules, don't have cars to get to support group meetings, work during the hours of those meetings, and often have to choose between medications and food, medications and rent, food and rent... with the result that their diabetes is undiagnosed, untreated, or undertreated. It is up to us -- we, who have the information -- we, who have the connections -- we, who have the experience of living with diabetes on a day-to-day basis -- to find ways to bring these people into the diabetes-care dialog, helping them access the resources needed to take control of their diabetes within the hours, cultureways, and financial restrictions of their lives.