World Diabetes Day

In case you haven't noticed, November is a very diabetes-heavy month. There is D-Blog Day on November 9th, World Diabetes Day and the Big Blue Test on November 14th and November is also American Diabetes Month. Which works out for everyone in the diabetes online community (DOC) who wants to also participate in NaBloPoMo since it gives us a lot of "free" posts!

I say this every year on World Diabetes Day, but I think it's so funny that it's the anniversary of the day that I found the DOC. I started my blog in January 2008 as a New Year's resolution type thing. I had just graduated and was working in the NICU as a nurse. I was looking for my first job as a nurse practitioner and planning to move back home to central Florida. Brad had already found a job there and was staying there with his parents most of the week. I had been working part-time during school and since I was busy job-hunting, studying for my boards and trying to sell our house, I didn't see any reason to go back to full-time right away.

Well, that left me with a lot of time on my hands to contemplate this huge change that Brad and I were about to experience. New town, new place, new jobs, new careers. I was lonely and missing Brad and had a lot on my mind. So I decided to start a blog to catch all those thoughts. After 11 months of blogging (mostly kvetching), I decided to Google "diabetes blogs." I had noticed that there seemed to be all sorts of blogs devoted to all sorts of topics out there and thought it would be interesting if I could find a few young-adult bloggers who had Type 1 diabetes, like me!

As it turns out, I was Googling "diabetes blogs" on November 14th, World Diabetes Day! How crazy is that?!? And not only did I find a few blogs, I found hundreds of voices. They were saying the things that I have been saying for years, running into the same emotional issues, dealing with the "diabetes police" that I didn't even know had a name and having the same quirky thoughts and funny stories as me. I was so excited and even though I had never blogged about my diabetes before up to that point, I sat down and blogged about it the same day!

Since then, I've continued to blog about my diabetes, my job(s), my dog, my career, struggles, frustrations, ups and downs, buying our first home, and getting pregnant with our first child, etc. I don't blog every day (except during NaBloPoMo!) but I do blog to get my thoughts out and to chronicle Brad and my life together. I love this blog. I love that I can see where we came from and how we got here and all my thoughts along the way. It's been so rewarding even if nobody reads it but me. I've found lots of other bloggers out there blogging about diabetes, pregnancy, cooking, lifestyles, etc and it's a HUGE community. But the DOC will always have a special place in my heart. The people I've met (both online and in real life) are real, genuine, wonderful people and are the quickest to support each other when it's needed. I'm so glad to be a (small) part of this community and I love that this day, of all days, is the anniversary of the day I joined.

In other news this is the first weekend in 6 weeks (!?!?) that I haven't had to either work, host guests or be out of town. I am also trying desperately to get over the last vestiges of this stupid cold. So I have big plans. My big plans include "supervising" all the little tasks Brad will be doing to finish up the nursery before the shower (after which he will be in "furniture-building-mode"), laying on the couch and catching up on my DVR'd shows, hanging out with my husband and my dog and maybe some friends, and (maybe) if we feel very ambitious, we'll even get dressed and go out someplace for a meal. Who knows? In other words, I'm taking it easy. I hope everyone out there in the DOC and all my other bloggie friends have a wonderful, relaxing weekend!

~Layne