RichSeattle

Yesterday, I sat in on a diabetes education training class at one of the local children's hospitals. My mentor suggested participating in order to better understand what a CDE does on a daily basis. That way I would know exactly if I wanted to go forward with this as a career.

It was definitely a great experience. Not only did I get to see a close up view of a CDE's job, but I also met some new contacts and opened my eyes to the real world. I don't think CDE is what I want to do, but it's still a possibility.

My eyes were opened to a completely new world, and I'm thrilled to grow in this area. The training class was for a repeat patient who came in earlier this week for an episode of DKA. The patient had run out of insulin and couldn't afford to replace it, so they ran high for awhile.

Eventually, the patient went into DKA. So they were re-trained on the basics of diabetes, to help them get back on track and allow the family to understand the severity of this disease.

What I found so amazing was that the family, even the patient, seemed to understand that DKA could result in death, but they didn't have the means (or wouldn't find the means?) to stop the situation.

I cannot imagine not knowing where my next bottle of insulin would come from or how I would manage to pay for strips. I cannot imagine being forced to slowly kill yourself because financially, diabetes was not possible. Yet, there are thousands (millions?) of diabetics out there who cannot afford to manage properly.

I am so grateful for what I've been blessed with. As tough as diabetes has been, I always had the financial means to treat this disease. I never have to worry about using too many strips or finding bottles of insulin. I didn't even have to worry about paying for a pump or a CGMS when insurance wouldn’t cover it.

But something must be done for those that are not as blessed as I am. We need a program, a system, a better way to allow diabetics to use insulin, test their blood sugar more than 2x a day, and have the resources that go with this disease (ketone test strips and glucagon kits). Something just has to be done.