Diabetes Blog Week - Fantasy Device

Today let’s tackle an idea inspired by Bennet of Your Diabetes May Vary.  Tell us what your Fantasy Diabetes Device would be?  Think of your dream blood glucose checker, delivery system for insulin or other meds, magic carb counter, etc. etc. etc.  The sky is the limit – what would you love to see?

When I first saw this topic, I thought of a lot of things. I thought of a Dexcom attachment that will shake your bed until you wake up if you sleep through an alarm - or a Jetson's style robot that will tickle you until you wake up... but then I realized that waking up to a robot saying "tickle tickle" would scare the crap out of just about anyone. I thought of a device that will alert someone to else to help you if you're sleeping through an alarm. I thought of a master computer that could keep track of all of the D-OC and tweet if one of us needs help. I thought of smaller diabetes devices that are less cumbersome. I thought of smaller needles, smarter pumps, better food labels for carb counting, and the eradication of high fructose corn syrup.

But the thing is, NONE of that would be needed if we had the cure generations of PWDs have spent so long waiting for. In order to achieve this we need more diabetes awareness. PWDs and their families take part in any and all fundraising efforts we possibly can - which is AMAZING - but it still boggles my mind that the PWDs are the ones who are largely donating money for a cure. Where's the outside support? Where's the "I care about someone who has diabetes and want to help" support? Where's the "this is a huge problem around the world and we should try to help" support?

So, my fantasy diabetes device would be a bullshit/diabetes myth filter. The enduring diabetes myths that prevent the general public from seeing how desperately we need a cure would magically be filtered from all forms of media. The lines in newspapers, magazines, and books that say there's ways to cure diabetes would be deleted and replaced with information about all of the promising diabetes research that's currently being conducted. Snake oil pushers would start talking about insulin and oral medications and stem cell research. TV shows would utilize PWDs as their expert sources. TV doctors would all come down with laryngitis on the days they're supposed to be taping diabetes shows. My fantasy diabetes device would make all of the diabetes information out there for the public ACCURATE. It would help the general public see that this is important and with adequate research funding, the cure could be within our grasp.