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Diabetes awareness can lead to positive lifestyle changes

Diabetes should not stop you from enjoying your life.

Having diabetes can be scary, overwhelming, and depressing. These are only a few words to describe how you may be feeling living with diabetes.

The feelings you have are normal. There are days where you feel better than others. Your emotions can affect your desires to take care of yourself.

You are not alone; there are 20.8 million Americans living with diabetes and 54 million Americans living with pre-diabetes.

There is hope: you have choices, options, opportunities, and many possibilities. You can do great things while living with diabetes.

There have been and will be many events in your life. Some changes in life, even positive changes, result in losses.

You may have experienced the birth of a baby, passing a hard test in school, new job, moving out of your parents’ house, marriage, divorce, and maybe the loss of a love one.

When you experience a loss it is important to work through the thoughts and feelings. This working through is called grieving, which is related to adjusting and adapting to life changes/events.

How do you respond to changes in your life? Do you deny or accept the life-changing event?

Many people go through the grief/loss cycle: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance.

I encourage you today to acknowledge that there is a life-changing event going on in your life which is being diagnosed with diabetes.

This event can be looked upon as a positive event or a negative event.

I pray you look upon this event in a positive manner and be willing to take action today to manage diabetes on a day-to-day basis.

Some have expressed a sense of gratitude at being diagnosed with diabetes because they’ve known for some time that they were not taking good care of their bodies; they embrace the new life routine of eating healthier foods and exercising.

All who have been diagnosed with pre-diabetes, diabetes, and those who have family members living with diabetes have choices. You have a choice to look at this life-changing event as a positive or a negative situation.

I pray you choose life, find the positive aspect in being diagnosed with diabetes and seek help in order to prevent/delay complications.

Every action you take has a result. Be honest; your biggest challenge in life is you.

Take responsibility for your life by making great choices daily and having a positive attitude. Make a commitment to change in order to improve the quality of your life.

Your life is a story. Each day you get to write a new page.

Remember, what you do today will affect your life tomorrow.

Kaishawn McDuffie, RN, BSN, CDE, is a registered nurse and a certified diabetes educator.

 

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