We Take Care of Our Own

Today’s prompt for Day 11 of the Wego Health Activist Writer’s Challenge is, “Theme song. Imagine your health focus or blog is getting its own theme song. What would the lyrics be? What type of music would it be played to?“

Another easy one! I picked a song that I already had the link to under the YouTube menu at the top of my blog – We Take Of Our Own by Bruce Springsteen. My sister was looking for something for her little boy and saw the CD so bought it for me as an early birthday gift – she was worried (as she should be!) that I would get it before my birthday. Although Springsteen did not write the song about the diabetes online community (aka DOC), the words certainly describe what the DOC means.

I been knocking on the door that holds the throne
I been looking for the map that leads me home
I been stumbling on good hearts turned to stone
The road of good intentions has gone dry as a bone
We take care of our own
We take care of our own
Wherever this flag’s flown
We take care of our own

We do take care of our own and we even have a flag!

There is a common theme that so many of us were looking for help when we stumbled upon the DOC. To me, the “good hearts turned to stone” represents doctors. Doctors are supposed to be good people. I am sure a lot of them went into medicine to help people. Unfortunately, a lot of us in the DOC have not found the help that we needed. I once said to a doctor that was criticizing me, “tell me what to do and I will do it.” Instead of him offering suggestions of what to do, I was met with blank stares. Another time, I was having a discussion with a neurologist. After he told me to keep my diabetes in tight control to help either slow down or halt the progress of my neuropathy, he called me anal for testing so much. Not sure how I was supposed to keep my diabetes in good control without testing very often.

When I found the DOC, I found a community full of compassion and understanding. I received tips on things to try to manage my blood sugar. Other members of the DOC know what it feels like for your blood sugar to shoot up for no reason. They know what it feels like to be so low you have no clue what is happening around you. They understand when the weather changes or some other thing that you have no control over, your blood sugar can shoot up. You find help instead of criticism.

When someone needs help, the DOC tries to find them help. Last year during the bad storms, Victoria and Mike collected supplies to help distribute to people in need. More recently, the DOC rallied behind the Schuhmacher Family when Ryan, father of three Type 1 diabetics, found out that he had six brain tumors as well as tumors in his lungs and abdomens.

This week, George wrote about running out of insulin on Easter Sunday and a friend was able to help him out. In the comment section of that post, Mike wrote about coming to the rescue of someone near him that needed help at 1 AM. He got in his car and took insulin to her. It didn’t matter that is was 1 AM – someone in the DOC needed help and he was there.

When Abbott gave the refund offer on the Navigators, they also offered test strips in addition to the buy-back. At first, I wasn’t going to get the test strips but a friend of mine told me she took them because a guy that worked with her husband had a hard time getting strips. I took them and gave them to someone that I knew didn’t have insurance. That same friend sent me some infusion sets when I decided to start the pump. After I found out I was allergic to Teflon, I sent them to someone else that was getting a pump and had high co-pays for his stuff.  He said that if he ended up not using them, he would send them on to someone that could.

A friend of mine saw me say on Facebook that I was out of Dexcom sensors and having trouble getting them. She had a bunch of expired ones and sent them to me. Another friend had test strips she offered me but I told her to see if she could find someone without insurance first because I have pretty good strip coverage – she was able to give them to someone else.

As a community, we watch out for each other. When we see someone in need, we try to help them. I have been part of other health communities, but I have never seen anything like the DOC.

Please visit Wego Health’s Facebook page to see other Health Activists’ theme song posts.

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