At The Booth...

Bean and I spent three and a half hours helping at the American Diabetes Association booth at the Women's Show yesterday.

We brought along our pod magnets and our vials of HOPE to try to help raise some money for our Step Out Walk to Stop Diabetes team, The Bean Team.  (We are two weeks away from our walk.)

Bean spent the majority of her time handing out stickers...who can say 'no' to a cutie like her?!?!
I think maybe she should have been soliciting the donations because I only managed to get $76.  Yeah, it's better than nothing, but I was really hoping for significantly more.  Especially since I had spent hours getting 80 pods decorated.

I also think people would have been a bit more careful with what they said if she had been within earshot...or at least I would hope so.

Yeah, I've heard the stories from lots of other DOCers about doing bake sales and garage sales and all the off the wall comments they heard.  And I've heard my fair share of random, bizarre D comments from time to time.  But I think condensing them into a solid three and a half hour block was a bit more than I could handle.

I should be fair in saying that the ADA also supports those with T2, so some of the conversations were kinda appropriate, but still....

You can't tell me that your fabulous diet that has gotten you off of your Metformin (oral med for T2) will work wonders for my daughter and that any other diet is total sh*t. (yep, she really said that!)
You can't tell me that "I already have that (meaning D), so I don't need to donate"...so you want to KEEP your diabetes?!?!
I don't really want to hear about your relative that lost his legs because he didn't take care of himself.
I don't really want to hear that you don't really want a pod magnet or HOPE vial and so you aren't going to make a donation at all.

I DID enjoy meeting the lady that has had T1 since 1968 and is pumping and can remember when the first blood glucose meter came out right before she became pregnant and was able to go through her pregnancy with great success because of being able to test actual blood sugar levels.
I DID enjoy talking with the wife of a newly dx'd T2 who is doing great...A1c down from 12something to 6something.
I DID appreciate the family members of other T1s who 'got it' and thought it was totally cool to use insulin vials and pods to raise money for our team.

I also enjoyed talking about Bean's Omnipod.  There were lots of people (mostly those familiar with other pumps) who had never heard of pods and were really interested in finding out more.  It's always rewarding to feel like you are helping make another T1's life a bit easier...and if that includes using Omnipod, then so be it!

Bean was a trooper.  Not sure exactly why, but she spiked into the low 400s right as we got there and we spent the whole time trying to get her down.  Thankfully it was totally OK for her to be bouncing around and being silly while handing out the stickers!!  By the time our time was over, she was back in the mid 100s, so we enjoyed some fries and she got her face painted as a reward for surviving the three and a half hours!

yep, she's rocking her Apridra cap earrings!