I’ve been married for 20 years to a wonderful woman who’s Dad & Grandmother had diabetes. Her Dad told her from a very early age that she should never marry anyone with diabetes in their family or her children would surely get diabetes. She was scared when she first heard her Dad tell her this at age 6 and it still scares her today.
When we first started dating she asked if anyone in my family had diabetes. I told her no, which was true at the time. But after we had been married a few years, and right before we were expecting our first child, my Grandma came down with diabetes. As soon as my wife heard about my Grandma she was scared to death. Scared that her children would have diabetes, from birth she thought. I had to take her to numerous doctors so she could find out the truth. When she finally listened to those doctors she felt very relieved. Now we have 2 very healthy teenage children and we couldn’t be happier.
The point of the story is that not many people are educated about diabetes and there are a lot of wild stories and old wives tales that go along with diabetes. Stories that are totally untrue. My wife, my children and myself always try to fill people in about the truths and myths of diabetes. We even carry around pamphlets we got from a doctors office so people know we’re telling them the facts. We think it would be great if the facts about diabetes were taught to children in middle school so they wouldn’t have to face the old myths and fears about diabetes.
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