Diabetes Awareness March...Are You In?
It was hard not to miss all of the news coverage surrounding the Women’s March on Washington which took place on January 21st. Hundreds of thousands attended in the gathering in DC and hundreds of thousands more marched across the globe. For not having an ‘official’ organizer, as it were; it surely had a huge turnout of an estimated 3 million people around the planet, according to some sources.
It caught the attention of the world. People who had something to say. People who passionately believed marching was the thing to do to garner the most attention. Marching so people would take notice.
Hmmmmmmmmmmm…???
Was I the only one who witnessed this act of history and thought, “What would it take for diabetes to have a movement like that?” A march to bring to light the numerous what I call ‘diabetes’ injustices’. How does this call to action sound? Diabetes Awareness March November...because: D.A.M.N.—something needs to be done.
Among the tasks on that agenda:
- The battle to obtain life-saving diabetes supplies;
- The battle to gain/keep medical coverage from 64 years 364 days and 23 hours to 65 years and I minute.
- The battle so the missed diagnosis of type 1 diabetes is resolved and no one else dies or becomes seriously ill with DKA.
- The battle that diabetes is not a joke about eating.
- The battle to keep funding for diabetes research that seem to always be on the ’chopping’ block in Washington.
- The battle against the steady rising cost of diabetes supplies like insulin.
If There's Power in Numbers, We Got That Covered
Yes, the diabetes community has a few issues worth marching for if you ask me. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says over 29 million people have diabetes, most of them type twos. Multiply that number by a two-loved-one exponent per person, and you would have 87 million people THAT SHOULD HAVE SOMETHING to say, some voice to be heard; something to march about.
I’m not too picky, I’ll accept if only 1% shows up—that would still be approximately 890,000 people in Washington.
Speaker after speaker letting the world know that kids and adults suffer with this disease having absolutely no choice. That it is no joke (and those who make jokes do not have a loved one battling the disease). There is much that the world could learn with the spotlight on us. All of us. United together.
I propose the date or the D.A.M.M march be November. Why not hold it on World Diabetes Day—Tuesday, November 14th, 2017. If the International Diabetes Federation got behind the idea we could hold marches all over the world. Scream it loud: Wear blue, make it you.
Why not? Would you show up? Would you go? Would you let your voices be heard?
I am a DiabetesDad