CWD News
2024 Leadership Retreat: Crafting the Future of Friends for Life
The Children with Diabetes team just wrapped up our annual Friends for Life Leadership Retreat Weekend and we can’t wait to share some of our highlights from this very important planning weekend. From planning meetings to visits to our storage units for inventory, this weekend was packed from beginning to end. So, let’s grab our refillable mugs and meet on a cozy chair in the hallway, and recap the Retreat! Each year in January, the CWD Team meets in Orlando to begin the planning process for our annual Friends for Life conferences. Joining us at the retreat are members of […]
Read MoreA Guide to Navigating Diabetes Care without Insurance
One of the harsh realities of life with a chronic condition in the United States is the possibility of losing insurance coverage – or never having it in the first place. Growing up with diabetes, I felt conditioned to prepare myself to have job opportunities that would provide adequate insurance coverage. A young man with Type 1 Diabetes shares a similar sentiment on the Diabetes Link, “Any T1D knows that health insurance is arguably the most important perk when deciding whether or not to take a job.”1 This is the reality of the current systems in the U.S., for better […]
Read MoreInhaled Insulin with Closed Loop Systems
One of the biggest challenges for people with diabetes has been finding ways to get insulin into the body that do not require injections. This has proven to be more difficult than people anticipated, but there is an option for inhaled insulin for adults with diabetes (the studies in children ages 4-18 are still ongoing). Why would I want to inhale insulin? One of the major benefits of inhaled insulin is its rapid onset, meaning it starts working very quickly. Since it is absorbed in the lungs, it gets into the bloodstream within a few minutes as opposed to 15-20 […]
Read MoreLooking Back on 2023
It was quite a busy year here at CWD! We began the year with our annual staff retreat in January where our key leaders met to discuss and plan our upcoming events. The retreat also serves as a time for staff and key volunteers to bond further and discuss the trials and tribulations of living with diabetes. In February, we attended ATTD where we were honored to present our second annual CWD President’s Award to our Friend for Life, Dr. Irl Hirsh. We were fortunate to have Dr. Hirsh be a presenter at our Friends for Life Seattle conference a […]
Read MorePro Tips for Enhancing the Effects of Insulin
When you have diabetes, sometimes it feels like no matter what you do, your insulin is not working how it should. There are many very real reasons why it may not be working – the dose may have been too small, you could be injecting into scar tissue, the insulin could have denatured (gone bad), to name a few. Then there’s insulin resistance, which is happening more and more for people with type 1 diabetes, despite it being a key characteristic of type 2 diabetes. Here are some insulin hacks/tips to help make sure your insulin is working as effectively […]
Read MoreScreening for Type 1 Diabetes
Diabetes basics pertinent to screening We know that type 1 diabetes is an autoimmune condition, meaning that the body’s immune system starts attacking its own body. The immune system is supposed to help the body fight off things such as viruses, flus, colds, etc. But sometimes it goes rogue and we don’t fully understand why yet. What we do know is that the autoimmune process is not an instantaneous event, but a slow progressive process. What this means is that we’ve figured out type 1 diabetes has three stages:1 What are autoantibodies? Autoantibodies are proteins in the blood that tells […]
Read MoreVisiting Lilly
Since CWD team “headquarters” is in Ohio, situated only a couple of hours from Lilly headquarters in Indianapolis, three of our local employees were recently invited to Lilly for an inspiring afternoon. We were invited to present Journey Awards to a handful of Lilly employees who live with diabetes. Lilly was the first pharmacy company to make insulin in the early 1900’s. In the main building, there is a beautiful hallway featuring the original brick building facades. According to our Lilly partner, Sarah Noel, this hallway still had a residual smell from the decades of bringing in animal pancreases to […]
Read MoreCWD’s Site Visit to Falls Church
Last week, the Children with Diabetes team headed to Falls Church, Virginia, to prepare for our Friends for Life 2024 Spring Conference. Falls Church holds a special place in many of our hearts, as we have held four conferences at the Falls Church Marriott Fairview Park. Though this location is familiar to us, we were met with a beautifully renovated venue as soon as we walked in the lobby doors. We are excited to bring our old and new families back to Falls Church for the first time post-COVID. We spent the next two days meeting with our friends from […]
Read MoreCelebrating the Wins in Diabetes
When you’re living with diabetes, or loving someone with diabetes, you have to stay resilient as much as you can. It’s a marathon, not a sprint, and you have to be able to make it to the end one way or another. One of the things that helps me maintain my resilience with diabetes is celebrating the wins. Acknowledge the Suck I’m not suggesting that you focus only on the positives, because, as previously stated, there will be a lot of times when diabetes will make it impossible to see the positives. So, make sure you also acknowledge the “suck” […]
Read MoreRinging in NDAM with our Friends at embecta
Honk honk! HONK HONK! Hooonkkkk hoooonnnkkkkk! If you listen closely, you can almost hear the sounds of the taxis on the streets of New York City, right? As the CWD Team returns from the Big Apple, we can’t wait to share with you a brief recap of our experiences at Nasdaq in New York City. The Children with Diabetes team was invited by our Friends for Life at embecta to help ring the opening bell of the NY Stock Exchange on October 31 as a kick off to National Diabetes Awareness Month. At the event, Children with Diabetes joined forces […]
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