I had another great opportunity to be a T1d cohost on The Bonnie Sher Show … she now calls me her “Roving T1 Co Host”! And I got to talk about an issue that I feel is extremely important to us T1ds. (By the way, my section stars at 30 minutes into the broadcast!)
Advocates!
- Identify what you need an advocate to do
- How to choose and ask someone to be your advocate
- And then how to educate and train your advocate and give him/her tools and lists
We are all taught the word CONTROL when we are first diagnosed. And many of us avoid situations (such as hospitals) where we have the CONTROL taken away from us. But we can’t always predict when we might be in that situation (my experiences had nothing to do directly with diabetes, such as appendicitis when I was 3000 miles away from home). The next best thing to staying away from those situations is BEING PREPARED.
I’d love to enlist your help and feedback as I develop a workbook and task list to educate your advocates. I’ve set up a page on my website called Advocate … and an email address: advocate@thesavvydiabetic.com. Please make comments and send me emails on any ideas or needs you might think we could all use. If you’ve developed a great way of training someone to be your advocate, please share that with me by email. If you have diagrams or checklists or pictures, please let me know if I might share them.
Let’s create something that helps us, our advocates and ultimately, the health care professionals treat us in the best healthful way, to get you home quickly and without undue excitement.
I’m looking forward to your help! Many thanks and hugs … joanne
