A Divabetic in DC

"Five, four, three, two, one...."
Confetti erupted as we walked through the doors, into the exhibit hall. I attended
this, an exclusively chick with diabetes event.(my husband had no interest in coming along) There were various booths set up-educational,(5) makeover(4), and caterers. I am not into the makeup deal(on a regular basis) but I thought it would be neat to try it out, see how wild I could look. So I went over to the makeup booth + got wild green eyes and brilliant red lipstick. Then I went over to the food place, but all they had were raw veggies,chicken pieces, and steamed veggies(that looked really gross). I headed back out to the car and grabbed my bag of Doritos because I was starving to death. Chicken, carrot sticks, and diet coke just weren't enough. Went back inside and over to the exercise booth, where you had to go through a mini-exercise session + they really did make it hard. Meanwhile, all this stuff was going on onstage(JDRF, ADA walk members) and musical groups. To get the prize bagpack, you had to go to at least three stations so I went to a "What's your numbers?" station and was told I am officially obese.(BMI=31?) Yep, 5"2, 119 lbs,qualifies me as obese, I guess I should lose about 25 lbs.(heavy sarcasm) But its not a bad number, its just a number.
(the reasoning of these people I simply do not understand)
Went to another booth and pretty much just stated something obvious so that I could just get through it and not have the CDE lecture me on eating every meal,taking your insulin, etc...
(this was pretty basic stuff)

At 3:30, they started handing out awards. And for all of about 2.5 seconds, I had hopes of winning the highly coveted Most Senior Diabetic award.Like I've stated, this was an event catering mainly to the older, type 2 crowd and when you've had diabetes forever you tend to just stay home. Because you already know all this stuff. So I felt like I had a small chance. But then a 12 year, 14 year, 20 year, 27 year, and 34 + 35 year PWD consecuatively squashed those pipe dreams into the cold, hard linoleum. Highly doubtful that I will EVER win such an award. The 34 and 35 year PWD both got nice gift baskets(worth a couple of hundred bucks), they both looked like senior Mrs.America's, they age well. Would be that I will be so lucky. Other gift baskets went to the most travelled(4 hours, from VA Beach), biggest entourage(6 people).

Because I was so bummed out about not walking the runway(I had preconcieved notions that that was what we'd be doing, at some point) I hastily volunteered(along with several others) to demonstrate exercise moves on stage. It didn't much make up for it but I did get several hundred people staring at me and that was definatly an addicting rush. For our troubles, we got a bag with a pack of Splenda.

Went to the CVS Booth- got a handrub-lotion, put hands in plastic baggies, put in waterbag type warmers, take out, take off baggies- felt AWESOME. Headed back out to registration, turned in paper, got prize backpack from NovoNordisk. Of course, the massage therapists and manicurists and caterors had all shut down so for me, the party was pretty much dead. Got a shirt and a wristband and headed out to the parking lot, now a mini-sea and still coming down hard. Good thing it wasn't held outdoors. I highly recommend going to one-if you get the chance. It was pretty cool being with hundreds of other women with diabetes, even if we had absolutely nothing else in common. Being in the racial minority at an event is a little bit awkward, PR people must have taken my picture a dozen times. I am not photogenic and having my picture plastered all over the website has got me a tad nervous.(ackkk)Not sure I'm ready for all of that.