What I Will Talk About

This morning, around the time this blog is posted, I will be getting dressed in my hotel room in Kingston.

I will then be heading down to the restaurant for breakfast and caffeine.

I will then be heading into a conference room to hook up my laptop and, for the tenth time, make sure that the slideshow and the sound are working properly.

At 8am, people will start trickling in with their coffees in hand and, at 8:30am, I will be introduced to the crowd.

And then floor will be mine for an hour as I speak to a room full of diabetes professionals.

I will talk about myself and paint a picture to show that I am much much more than a diabetes label.

I will talk about how I was diagnosed and what the word "Type 1" meant to my 28-year old self.

I will talk about the journey that I have been on since my diabetes diagnosis and that, no matter how challenging diabetes can be, it always seems to have a role to play in making my life better.

I will talk about how, any goal, no matter how crazy it may seem at the start, is manageable when broken down into bite-sized pieces.

But more importantly, I will talk about the Diabetes Online Community. I will talk about how I discovered it. I will talk about how it, and you, made such a difference both in my daily life as well as in how I manage fitness and health. I will talk about how important the DOC is as a way to provide support and encouragement to people in the time between our six-month appointments. When we are dealing with all of the diabetes stuff on our own. When we don't always have people in our lives who understand.

I will talk about how taking even a few extra minutes to get to know who a patient is can make a world of difference in terms of how care is provided.

I will encourage them to explore the DOC and encourage them to talk to the people they support about it.

And hopefully, by 9:30am, I will have made a bit of difference in the world.