Diabetes Blog Week 2014 is here! This is my fourth year of taking part and it's fair to say that if there's one thing that diabetes does make me excited about, it's this! Thank you to Karen Graffeo at Bitter~Sweet for the opportunity to do this every year. I'm currently in the latter stages of revising for my first year university exams, but the real test will be finding out how to tear myself away from reading all of the wonderful D-Related posts over the next 7 days.
The topic for the first post of D-Blog Week is to share something that we're passionate about. I'm completely with my friend Vicki from Vicki's Notebook on this one. I have a fire in my heart for a lot of causes and the right for all people with diabetes to have access to the insulin, test strips, needles and technology they need is one of the ones at the very top. It sounds pretty awful now I think about it, but it wasn't something I remembering thinking about until last year when I received this tweet on Twitter:
I took a look at the website for Marjorie's Fund and my outlook on my own diabetes changed significantly. Marjorie was born in Uganda and was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes when she was 3 years old - the same age that I received my diagnosis. She died when she was just 29 years old from kidney failure, caused by her diabetes. She wasn't much older than I am now when she passed away, yet Marjorie was considered to be 'one of the lucky ones'.
Although diabetes can be awful for anyone who has to live with it, reading about the lack of resources and care available to those with type 1 in other parts of the world definitely made me feel very blessed. I have entire drawers packed with needles, test strips, ketone sticks, spare injection pens and old glucose monitors and a whole compartment in the fridge full of insulin cartridges. Other people with diabetes, like Marjorie, are battling to stay alive and living on as little as one insulin injection a day, if that.
However, the amount of medication a person has for any health condition should not be about luck. A person with type 1 diabetes needs insulin, test strips, glucose monitors and diabetes education. They have the right to those resources, irrespective of what part of the world they live in. This is why organisations like Marjorie's Fund are so important - they help to give people the life they have a right to.
R.I.P Marjorie
I think (no wait, I know) sometimes I get so wrapped up in my day to day diabetes life that I forget how lucky I am. Lucky to have the tools and medicines I need. Thank you for reminding me that not everyone is as fortunate.
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