The Corner Booth

The healthcare professionals formerly known as “diabetes educators” will henceforth be referred to as “Diabetes Care and Education Specialists” (DCES). This was the biggest news coming out of the mid-August 2019 annual meeting of the American Association of Diabetes Educators (AADE), the professional org that will also be changing its name soon as well to fit with this rebranding effort. That new name: Association of Diabetes Care and Education Specialists (ADCES). It’s all part of something called Project Vision , a multi-year plan to define and refresh the roles, capabilities and care priorities of its roughly 14,000 members nationwide. This effort dates back to at least two years ago, when the organization realized that something had to be done to address the tides of change in diabetes education. Yes, We Said “Rebranding” The announcement of the new job title by current AADE President Karen Kemmis on the first day of the #AADE19 conference was met with some en...

If you haven't noticed all the Insulin Pricing talk happening lately, you've probably been seriously unplugged. It's everywhere, a constant theme brought up in mainstream press as well as in the political arena. Most recently, this American crisis over affordability and access came up a half-dozen times during the two-day Democratic 2020 presidential debates held in Detroit, and also when a group of D-advocates made a trek to Canada along with Sen. Bernie Sanders to buy affordable insulin and make a statement in the process as part of his 2020 presidential campaign. (I had the chance to ride along!). In the face of desperation, where many people with diabetes are forced to ration their life-sustaining insulin and are even dying as a result, some of this may not seem enough. But we are at a point where the public outcry is at record-high levels, and it's paying off with state and federal actions moving the needle on this in meaningful ways. For examp...

My first-ever experience with retinopathy laser treatment was a breeze. No pain, no big deal. That's why my eye specialist had told me going into the procedure, but I didn't take his word for it. I should've listened and trusted him. Instead, my anxiety fueled by a decades-long dread of diabetes eye complications -- a Fear of Complications -- clouded my emotions and prevented any sense of rational thought. All I could get my head around was that my retinopathy had finally moved to a point where something needed to be done, more than just the usual run-of-the-mill BG management that I'd been prescribed as a treatment since it first showed itself way back in 2007. This fear's only natural. Because we're human. And we get scared when scary things get thrown at us. When this Funky Left Eye Retinopathy was sprung on me earlier in the year, it was a quite a bit to process. I got pretty emotional about it. My eye doc tried to reassure me, as ...

A little girl with a green bracelet sees an adult man wearing one and asks if he has diabetes, and when he says “Yes” she responds with: “It’s OK, we can have diabetes together.” Elsewhere, a boy crawls under a round banquet table in search of a dropped insulin cartridge that isn’t even his own. When asked why, he notes it’s for another green bracelet wearer, and it’s just what we do for each other. All around, kids and adults exchange hugs and laughs. There are abundant smiles, emotional moments, and diabetes device flashes. There’s a sense in your gut that you are part of a community, a club, a family... that people living with type 1 are a tribe who understand and look out for each other, no matter our differing politics or where we hail from, our brand of advocacy, or even how long we’ve been touched by this illness. That is the magic of the annual Children With Diabetes Friends For Life conference, going strong for 20 years now each July in Orlando, FL. It began as a...