As diabetes advocates, we spend an awful lot of time writing about our challenges, our frustrations, and the misinformation that is so rampant out there in the media, internet, and medical professions. It is with great JOY that I write my first post of the year, giving a STANDING OVATION, and a very much heartfelt thanks, to the Mary Greeley Medical Center, in Ames, Iowa, (just a few blocks from where I live) for taking the time to create an innovate way of FIGHTING misconceptions and stereotypes among medical professionals, and giving them an idea of what it's like to live with this crappy ass disease, even if it's just for one day. While some of us may not be on insulin, diabetes still demands many changes, vigilance, and eternal food obsessive thoughts... (What to eat, how many carbs does that have, what's in that dish, I am too high right now to eat, I need to stop right now, and eat... etc, etc.)
It is, for all of us, so very "damned inconvenient," as was put by Dr. Timothy Leeds, an obstetrician that participated in this exercise.
Basically, June Heiden, a registered nurse and certified diabetic educator, came up with this plan... to assign "Diabetes for a day" to several medical professionals, and to have to go through the inconvenience of stopping their day, and everything they are doing, to treat lows, highs, focus on meals, and count carbs... and everything that goes along with it... well, except the actual feeling of the lows and highs (cus well, they don't actually have diabetes)... To help create a 10 minute educational video for medical staff, and the public.
I am, to say the least, more than a little impressed with this idea. I've always daydreamed of my medical staff knowing what it's like to live this obsessive/compulsive roller coaster for just one day.
While I am sure there is much, much to be done in our community to IMPROVE how we approach persons with Diabetes, of all types... I have to say KUDOS, MGMC. You've done a job WELL DONE.
Please, take a moment... to leave a comment, either on our town's feature story, or write a letter to the MGMC staff THANKING them for this creative enterprise.
As reported by the Ames Tribue: "A day with diabetes: Medical center films education video".
And here it is... "24 Hours: A Day With Diabetes"
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