Happy World Diabetes Day!

Yeah, saying Happy World Diabetes Day just doesn't have quite the same ring to it as "Happy Thanksgiving" or "Happy New Year."

I attended a World Diabetes Day event that was held at a local college tonight. I was able to spent some time chatting with my friends from diabetes camp for a bit and meet some new friends with diabetes, which is always nice. Might have a new project in the works... That's so typical of me. I say I'm satisfied with my workload and then I go to an event and get roped into working on another project. Eventually I'm just going to have to start handing out my resume when people ask, "So, what do you do?" because there simply won't be enough time.

Clare Rosenfeld, my friend who started the Unite for Campaign with her mom, then mentioned that at camp my nickname was "Almighty Goddess of Correspondence." It's really didn't hit me until tonight when I was listing off all these different diabetes resources to a young woman that I know that I indeed do know everyone, or at least know of them. My email address book as over 300 people listed.

I am never, ever changing email addresses.

It was very exciting to share diabetes with a whole new group of people who have never been exposed to the disease. As much as we get sick of explaining diabetes yet again, it's forums like this that are exciting to me because these people really want to know what's going on with the global diabetes epidemic. We had at least forty people come to the lecture on the global diabetes epidemic and the UN Resolution and Q&A that my friends from camp held and it was really nice that so many people are taking an active interest in this subject. So often I feel like I have to beat people over the head with why diabetes is important and why they need to help the cause. It was nice that for once people were genuinely curious.

I hope that this event and the others that were held around the world today really shape the way our political leaders view diabetes and that it will both save lives by providing the needed education and medication and by funding the research needed to find a cure.

One focus of the Unite for Campaign is the petition to pass a UN Resolution on diabetes. The Resolution, for those who haven't heard about it, will allow the thousands of diabetes organizations in developing countries to have legitimacy in asking for assistance in providing education and treatment. It will recognized diabetes as a serious global threat.

The petition has already garned 11,000 signatures in just two weeks, and there is still time to make your voice heard. I hope that you are all supporting the Unite for Diabetes Campaign by signing the petition - and if you haven't, why the heck not?

Clare told us that the Ambassador to the U.N. is actively looking at the number of people signing the petition. He will see it if the numbers go up! The more people who sign it, the more he will know that this is an issue he cannot just ignore, and if the United States signs this Resolution, then more countries will sign the Resolution, and if we have more countries signing the Resolution then we will reach the 97 (our of 192) countries that we need to pass the Resolution.

The World Heath Organization has already declared that diabetes is a bigger global health threat than AIDS, but we are still silent. The Resolution will give us our voice at the U.N. next year on November 14, where we can go to the General Assembly and tell our story to not just our media and our government, but to the entire world.

And that indeed will be a happy World Diabetes Day.