Ninjabetic: I am currently high knee marching to bring down my BG! Just over an hour to go!!!
Ninjabetic: [about one hour later] My BG is 108!!
MarieBe: @ninjabetic so the high stepping worked well
MarieBe: I confess I did the same - I was 180 an hour ago, took a fast walk
Ninjabetic: @MarieBe We should have had a parade! a D parade!

Diabetes has rarely been more in the news than in the past several weeks. Of course there was all the news coming from the ADA Scientific Sessions and the media press around the Sotomayor nomination and the JDRF Children's Congress. We're starting to see the after-reports from the annual Friends For Life convention, and many of us have been glued to the television watching the Sotomayor confirmation hearings. Add to this the discussion of the treatment of chronic diseases under the various proposals being discussed for health care reform, and the noise practically drowns out the news.

Today, people with diabetes tried a different type of demonstration -- a diabetes-specific demonstration. "Test! Don't Guess!" has been dLife's mantra for quite some time. About a week ago, Manny Hernandez got the idea that in honor of his two diabetes social networks (TuDiabetes and EsTuDiabetes) approaching a total of 14,000 members on July 14, that we should have a mass demonstration of 14,000 people with diabetes testing our blood glucose and posting the results to Twitter, to TuDiabetes, or to EsTuDiabetes.

Some folk were hoping we would have enough tweets in a short amount of time that the hashmarks #diabetes and #14kPWD would show up as "trending topics" in Twitter. This would signal to the folk who monitor Twitter for "the next up and coming 'news' item" that diabetes is an important topic. (With so many of us -- especially Type 2's -- around, one would think that went without saying. But look around... how many people do you know who are still locked up in Wilford's closet? How many PWD do you know who don't test -- or who don't test frequently enough? How many people do you know who consider "proper diabetes care" to consist exclusively of taking one or two pills a day?)

Now, let's look at this from a different perspective. Those of us who remember the 1970's (or the Retromercials on TVLand) may recall an ad for, I believe it was Faberge Organics shampoo and conditioner, that started out with a young woman saying, "I loved [the product] so much that I told two friends, and they told two friends, and so on, and so on..." At the first "two friends", the screen split in two; at the second, it split into four; at the third, it split into sixteen smaller versions of the same woman saying the same line ("and they told two friends" or "and so on").

Well, it's a cinch that each of us knows at least two people with diabetes who may not be as aggressive about their self-care as we are. Maybe it's a matter of money, or of a doctor who is not up-to-date on the latest medical knowledge and standards of practice. Maybe it's that they don't have a support group to whom to turn when their numbers are not responding correctly. Maybe they just need someone to take them by the hand and show them a place to go like the dLife forums, or our dLife Community.

Tweeting "my blood glucose is 124 -- #diabetes #14kPWD" tells everyone who "follows" me -- who is interested in what I have to say on Twitter -- that I care enough about myself to test my blood glucose, that I'm interested in diabetes, and that this is part of the larger 14kPWD (14,000 People With Diabetes) micro-event. Perhaps it will tell them I'm "in control" at the moment -- or perhaps it will tell them "I have diabetes" and that I am "out" of Wilford's closet. That may give them all the encouragement they need to say, "Hey -- I have diabetes, too" or "You test your blood sugar at home? Why?" or any of a thousand or more other things that let you know they are "part of the club", that they may need a sympathetic ear, or that they may have a sympathetic ear to lend to others. This gives common ground for the conversations that may improve their self-care, or extend the variety of inputs into our community.

One of the most positive things that came out of this massive "test-in" demonstration is how many of us found other Tweeps (people on Twitter) to "follow" and to see as part of this organic, rapidly evolving online community of diabetics. Regardless of how visible we were to the rest of the Twitterverse, connecting up with others is always a Good Thing.

In response to George and Marie's interchange at the start of this post, and with all due apologies to Lerner and Loewe, I ended up posting the following (based on the song from Hello, Dolly!)

Before the parade passes by, gotta be sure my blood glucose is in range
Before the parade passes by, I have to test before I start to act strange
It's so hard to test when you're low
You cannot respond to beats that the bands arrange
When you start to shake
Despite that big hunk of cake
That you wolfed down with all that juice
And then that bolus hit
And now you're losing it
And the d-Police insist your control is s***
Because the parade passed you by.