I am not medically trained, yet there’s a lot I can give another person with diabetes that a health provider can’t. From 42 years of living with diabetes I know a lot more about medication and food and blood sugar than most.

One thing I am however is a peer-mentor with the A1C Championprogram, and I am among 80 people living with diabetes who speak across the country to other people who have diabetes.

When someone with diabetes, either recently diagnosed or having had it for years, hears from their doctor what they have to do to manage it, they’re usually looking back in the face of someone who doesn’t have it. Someone who thinks what’s the big deal about changing how you eat, taking up an exercise program, taking pills with every meal or six injections a day? Just get on with it.

But when we talk as fellow patients those we talk to look back in the face of someone who gets it. Who knows how frustrating it is when even though you’ve been “good”- eaten the right foods and walked around the mall – your blood sugar is “bad” – not in your target range.

The hour-long programs we present as peer-mentors provide information and education, but largely provide inspiration through our own personal stories of struggle and success.

Patients learning from patients is a very different kind of education than patients learning from medical professionals. And it’s happening more and more. Patients go online, follow diabetes bloggers and volley what they know back and forth. Patients learning from patients is about a shared bond and experiences.

This led me to reflect on an early A1C Champion presentation I gave in Buffalo, New York. It was the first time I was double billed with a diabetes educator. Her talk preceded mine, so I leaned back and listened. What I heard was forty-five minutes of numbers: A1Cs, blood pressures, weight and weight control, exercise, portion control, and carb-counting.

While all this is important information, I also heard what she left out. That these goals are not easy. That we have to find a way to fit it all into our day. That a small step in the right direction is to be applauded. That we should pat ourselves on the back for every good effort.

The purpose of my talk I quickly saw would be to say what she did not: to talk about how we hold diabetes in our lives and if necessary how holding it differently can help. Taking the stage I shared my own shock and fear upon diagnosis, my subsequent denial, and my early complications from that denial.

The room quieted. I was they saw like them. I see the same landscape they see. I tramp through the same darkness trying to figure out half the time why my blood sugar’s doing what it’s doing. I look for solace when diabetes rains down upon me or drains me out.

“When you’re so busy testing your blood sugar every day,” I said to my audience, “reading labels, counting carbs, and calculating everything, do you stop to think why you’re doing all this work? Isn’t it to see the grandkids grow up, start that second career, create the best vegetable garden in town, contribute something to the world, or have another million days with your spouse?”

Heads nodded and people leaned forward. They turned from silent witnesses into curious involved participants. Someone had brought humanity back into the room. Someone had understood and acknowledged this piece of living with diabetes where their heart resides, along with their struggle.

My predecessor, warm and personable though she was, didn’t have diabetes. That put her not just on the other side of the projector, but on the other side of our experience, where so many healthcare providers sit.

We patients, however, are the experts of our diabetes and we are in the daily business of chronic illness. We have life adjustments to make, and since we have precious little help to make them, we are reaching out to each other.

Here are my 5 recommendations for a better tomorrow:

1.    Learn all you can about diabetes, and about your diabetes

2.    Pace your efforts, forgive your mistakes

3.    Appreciate what you hold dear

4.    Spend more time doing what you love. While we’re living with diabetes let’s not short-change the “living” part.

5.    Consider yourself “more than” not “less than.”  We’re all doing a second job.

After the program, people crowded around to thank me, and they were smiling. Well, if anyone can leave a diabetes meeting with a smile then I figure I’ve done something right