Happy New Year everyone! 

I hope you had a safe and restful holiday season. This year looked very different from holidays in the past, but slowing down and disconnecting was just what the doctor ordered for me. 

For me, the new year always has a different layer of time passing, because January 1st is my Diaversary. This year marks 16 years with Diabetes, which means I’ve officially lived with Diabetes longer than I haven’t. More than half my life! While a diagnosis with Diabetes certainly sucks, I’m grateful that I have my health, a community of people to help provide support, and the tools to thrive and live the life I want to live. 

However, that doesn’t mean living with Diabetes is easy, even for me. Last month, Eritrea and I had a great discussion on the podcast about Disability and Diabetes, and it reinforced for me that denying the existence of your disease and disability is to deny all the hard work that goes into you living, surviving and thriving every day. 

So as we close the chapter on 2020 and move into 2021, remember that there will absolutely be difficult days with Diabetes, there will be days where nothing makes sense, where healthcare systems, insurance, deductibles, pharmacies, etc. feel impossible to deal with and that this battle with Diabetes will never end. 

BUT while hope and optimism may run slim some days, there is always a community of people out there who know what you’re going through and can meet you wherever life has found you at that particular moment.

So forward this email to someone who has met you where you are and been there for you and let’s build up our teammates to carry as much momentum as we can into 2021. 

I’m cheering for you, 16 years in and let’s just call it…84 to go. 

Rob

An extra goodie this month! Rob recorded a review of his 

Medtronic MiniMed 770G Unboxing! Check it out, up on his youtube now!

DOING THINGS DAY:December 2020 was one for the books. We had two amazing T1D women takeeover our IG: Gina aka @joyabetic and @ArianaFrayer!Gina is a medical student who lives is Zurich, her take over was a beautiful glimpse into her life in Switzerland. Ariana, who can also be found @cupofojcreative, took us on a day in her life and as a special bonus made delicious holiday treats that can be enjoyed year round! 

The Holidays may be gone much too soon but we have some recipes that could keep the cheer going forever.Last month Ariana, @arianafrayer created some goodies just for the occasion but we think you can enjoy them whenever wherever! Check out the pics below and full recipes up on our blog.

THIS MONTH ON THE POD:

We're switching it up here at Diabetics Doing Things with our first ever bilingual episode. Jorge Esquivel Ruiz came on the pod from Campeche, Mexico! Eritrea, Rob and Jorge dived into Diabetes in Mexico, access, cultural food and so much more. We are back with our episode format "Testing Testing our bloodsugars!" This time we are diving into achievement culture while acknowledging the conversations around disability and diabetes. A great episode to close out 2020 if we do say so ourselves.Click the pictures to listen to full episodes on our site!

While some of us have relaxed our quarantine and have returned to work and others are still in full lockdown, were coming in 2021 with the internet still being the safest playground. Here are some upcoming events on our radar:

Our friends over at Diabetes Strong are hosting their free 3-week Fit With Diabetes Challenge again in January 2021 and everyone is welcome to join.

It’s an online challenge where Christel from Diabetes Strong and a team of diabetes experts will take you through some of the most important things you need to know to live a healthy life with any type of diabetes.

It’s free to participate and there will be weekly prizes, daily challenge emails, a lot of interactions in the closed Diabetes Strong Facebook groups, free workouts from Glucosezone, and live webinars with experts, including “Ask a Diabetes Educator Anything” with Gary Scheiner and “How to Work Through Diabetes Burnout” with Bill Polonsky.