The Web

Last spring I did a workshop with the teen girls from my support group T1 Empowerment.  The point of the workshop was to better understand the web of who is connected to our diabetes beyond ourselves, the patient.  It was an interesting task to give the girls because a lot of them struggled to see past the immediate and realize just how many people really do make up our health care web in regards to diabetes care.

what the teens came up with

I felt this was an important workshop because a lot of times when we are managing our diabetes on a daily basis we forget who else can help us along the way. We can feel swamped with numbers and emotions and forget that we can also reach out.  Not only do these people make impact on us, but we also make impact on them.

I am lucky, I have resources, while I understand very much so, that many do not have such a glamorous web to show.  I tried to in-still that in the minds of the teens who do at times struggle to keep afloat with a disease that does demand a lot from them.  

The funny thing, was that these teens almost saw these ties as an annoyance, and I totally get that. There are times that I do not want my friends telling me how to take care of my diabetes, despite their best interest, or times that I do not want my endo or nurse judging the way I have been taking care of my diabetes, but the important thing to take, is that no one in this web, is out to get you, but rather to walk the journey with you. 

This web is ever changing, growing, shrinking and that is okay. The important thing is that we recognize who is in the web and remind ourselves that they are there for us. 

Kayla