Today’s topic is one that I am sure many of those person’s with type 1 diabetes will either jump all over. But they might also choose to ignore it. The amount of BS that we are told or hinted at or just said will cure us, is overly ridiculous. A few weeks ago Kim made mention of someone needing to create a site called “The Cinnamon” in honor of The Onion and start doing just this.

This page has brought me great joy to read these “real” stories. This honest to goodness truth.

Sadly though we all face these stereotypes in whatever illness we talk about. Yet, we must smile and deal with it. Maybe take the time and effort to teach and educate. However there are times when we just can’t or just don’t have the energy to continue to break the stereotypes. There is no cure, exercise for people with type 1 makes us healthy, but will not cure us. Cinnamon is not a miracle cure. Yes for people with type 2, the symptoms and signs of diabetes can be controlled, monitored, and even suppressed but living a healthy life, but they still have type 2. As it stands there is no cure. There is a light at the end of the tunnel. When will this happen?. Probably not for some time, despite fact that there is so much research out there. There are new breakthroughs on the horizon, but the cure is a five many years away.

We just hang in there. We just see what we can do. We try our hardest and go from there. The news stories, the tales, the cure, is not ready yet. Until I see it in my hands or in my body. I will not get overexcited each time something new happens. More so, I will not spread the propaganda or misinformation. I will pass what I know on because I was able to confirm it.

Well with a loaded question such as:“If I could do anything as a Health Activist…” Think big today! Money/ time/ physical limitations are no longer an issue. What is your biggest goal that is now possible?” Cure? Or is that answer just way over easy and simplified? So now we get the easy answer with the long response.

To be honest with you this is a cheat of an answer. Yet it is something that is so true, if I had all the resources in the world, I would fund work on the cure in full swing. Yet this is not the case. The only way to raise that sort of capital is to raise awareness properly. How to do that? Well you see, this is where the campaigning, the funding, the resources, etc could come in handy. While I did kinds blog about it last November.  The JDRF ran a program about being T1 for a day. Which was great. You would get texts telling you certain things throughout the day. Trying to “manage” your diabetes. Or previously I know JDRF had something to get people to experience what we felt on a daily basis with using rubber bands and such to simulate testing and the like.

Well with my infinite resources, I would come up with a program to let people truly experience what life was like if you were living with type-1 diabetes. To feel the fuzzy/confused lows and desire to eat all the things. To have a high and drink and drink and drink. Followed by the tinkling away all that was forced through your system. You get to experience the mental anguish when the food you eat and “bolus” for goes awry and you need to handle the consequences.

There is no good or bad kind of diabetes, there is an illness that on all levels kicks ones ass all the time. There is no one true way to handle this illness. Maybe I am bitter today, because of number issues I experienced while out playing. (I am fine, my mothers all checked in on me and yelled at me already.) The thing is, until people realize the struggles one goes through on a daily basis, they cannot see why we advocate so strongly for the “CURE” not the temporary fix (which we will use of course if it improves our lives), but the all out, hey you have a working pancreas and bonus no anti-rejection drugs or whatever the end result of a cure is.

The getting to a cure needs to have people behind it. It needs to have funding behind it. It needs to have the minds behind it. To get people to see these things might make that search, that quest for a cure to be that simpler. People will get what we go through and not just nod sympathetically when we talk about our condition. They won’t make the comments we hate hearing over and over again. (That is a completely different post to write though.)

To let people see what we face, what anyone with a chronic condition faces, will allow them to truly realize why we seek the “CURE”. Why we do what we do. So yes, if I could do anything. I would want to get people behind me to finally discover the cure I am seeking. The one we all are seeking.

I need to thank Sara for letting me have use of this picture for today’s blog post. She is one of the greatest people in the world. I would not be alive with out her some days. My blog would be lost. I would have no one to link people to go see. I would be LOST without her. But seriously, thank you Sara. You are a great friend.