Dulce and I made it home last night, safe and sound. I know I enjoyed the trip and I think she did too. I really enjoyed meeting everyone, especially @MHoskins2179 from @DiabetesMine, Dr.P @not_defeated – I spent them most time with them, but also Michele @DiabetesWhiBlk, Bill @iRunT2D, Chris @cgoldrick of Edelman, Anna of @diabetessisters, Jill @100poundsgone, Gene Kunde Diabetes Hands Foundation, Sarah Odeh Diatribe , and Shelby @diabeticfoodie. Hoping I didn’t leave anyone out.
I especially want to thank Lily of @AstraZenecaUS for iniviting me and helping with the arrangements.
The hotel was nice. Plenty of places for Dulce to sniff outside. The AstraZeneca site is really nice and she really liked the smells there.
It’s incredible that a big pharma firm wants to put themselves out of business in the diabetes space. I have used one of their drugs in the past: Symlin. Though the lapband has eliminated that need.
Traveling is hard on me. There is the arthritis (complication of diabetes but something I’ve been dealing with a long time). My weight, but I fit in airline seats now, especially if I’m not in the middle and haven’t needed a seat belt extender in a long time. I will admit to leaning away from my neighbor. And the social anxiety.
The social anxiety is the hard part, and it does keep me from doing some fun things – but I didn’t let it get in the way this time.
One huge issue and about to make a complaint with American. They contacted me on Wednesday about Dulce (the service dog) and assured me that there would be no problems and that we only needed her vest. Well on Friday, Ron Reagan airport, an agent demanded her paperwork. No issues in Dallas. The letter from my doctor that I keep on my phone was acceptable. I assume she thought Dulce was an emotional support animal, which she is not. She is a medical alert dog (diabetes, though that isn’t any of her business).
In fact, that was the only time we encountered problems with traveling. The taxi driver was cool with her (Dulce did want his food), and was impressed that I only had to tell her “No” at the beginning of the trip and at the end when I was paying him. The shuttle drivers were cool with it, from Park N Fly in Dallas, to the shuttles do and from AstraZeneca.
I learned a lot and met people I had “met” online in the past. I also met new online friends.
Two big take aways:
The DOC isn’t always friendly to Type 2s. I haven’t found that to be true as a whole, though I have found some individuals who aren’t, I just ignore them. My families favorite story in this regard:
The first newcomer approaches a long time resident working at a gas station and asks: “Is this town friendly”? His reply: “How was the town, you came in?”. Oh, they were great, we will really miss everyone”. The resident says, “we’re just the same”.
A second newcomer approaches the resident, and when asked if the town is friendly”? He asks the same question, and the newcomer replies: “Oh, they were awful, we didn’t find anyone we liked”. He said, “Oh, I’m sorry, this town is the same way.”
We moved a lot as a kid and we always strove to be the first newcomer, and it usually works.
The second big take away is that there is a lot of problems with patient and doctor relationships in regard to diabetes. I think we can solve a lot of problems in that space if we make blood sugar testing as routine as blood pressure testing. If each doctor is required to do three things in an normal exam, I believe it will change how doctors handle diabetes. These things are weight, blood pressure and blood sugar.
We need to start treating blood sugar abnormalities the same way we do blood pressure. There is little patient shaming over a high blood pressure reading. There is no blaming the patient when medication doesn’t work.
Again, AstraZeneca, thank you for the fun trip to Maryland!