Diabetes Blog – Happy-Medium.net

This is the sixth year of Diabetes Blog Week, started by Karen over at Bitter~Sweet Diabetes. All of us diabetes bloggers are given a subject to write about each day during this week, and after we publish each day’s installment, we’ll go back and link our posts on her site. Want to know more? CLICK HERE.
 
 
Welcome to the weekend. It’s a lovely Day 6 of Diabetes Blog Week, and it’s Preakness Day in Baltimore. Those two don’t have any correlation other than the date, but I live about ten minutes from Pimlico, so I just thought I’d throw it in.

Our topic today: Favorites and Motivation.

If you have been blogging for a while, what is your favorite sentence or blogpost that you have ever written? Is it diabetes related or just life related? If you are a new blogger and don’t have a favorite yet, tell us what motivated you to start sharing your story by writing a blog? (Thank you Laddie of Test Guess and Go for suggesting this topic.)
 
 
To be honest, I’m looking forward to reading my fellow blogger’s thoughts on this subject more than I’m looking forward to writing about myself. Or my writing. But, I’ll try to give you a few favorites of mine over the past three years.

The blog post that seemed to resonate the most with readers was something I wrote on #DBlogCheck Day 2013. In that post, I wrote about how important it is to add your voice to the ever-growing Diabetes Community. Nearly two years later, this still remains the most read thing I’ve ever written. I love supporting people. There’s nothing that I stand to gain as a blogger that I wouldn’t give to another writer when they really need it. This post was a way for me to say this community is big enough for all of us. Let’s all help more people get the love, support, and acceptance we’ve all experienced. I think the way I wrapped up that post said it all:

“Your story is the most important one in the world to the person moved by it. Don’t let down the one person who needs to hear you.”
 
 
Personally, the one thing I wrote that means a lot to me was about Interoperability Awareness. I wrote it in anticipation of speaking during the comments portion of a public workshop at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. When I did get up and speak, I delivered this text almost verbatim. It was the first time I felt like I had learned something from my fellow Diabetes Advocates and put it to good use. I was grateful, humbled, and swept up in a wave of emotion all at the same time.

“To talk about the proprietary nature of software that a company has developed just doesn’t hold water anymore. The software that comes with your device doesn’t have a separate line item on the invoice. It’s baked into the price. Protecting “intellectual property rights”, in this case, is a 20th Century complaint for a 21st Century world. And it’s an 18th Century argument when it comes to what is best for the patient. I’ve said it before, and I mean it: Patient trumps Proprietary.”
 
 
Finally, a phrase. It’s become kind of a mantra around here. I want you to know that it’s not a throwaway line… I really mean this with all my heart. I first wrote it in a letter to myself five years earlier (you have to read it to understand what that means). I wanted myself to understand then, and I want others to understand now, that there are not limits on my support of your hopes and dreams. I will leave this with you now. And please, feel free to steal it and use it yourself.

I support you… no conditions.

Happy Saturday!