support group???

Dodge City Kansas needs a Diabetic Support Group!

I need a Diabetic Support Group! I have gone through various stages in my disease (type 2). I was horrified when I was diagnosed and educated myself to the point of having the happy illusion that I understood the disease. Then, I gradually started to lose this certainty. Finally, most of this year (2010), I had a "GAF" attitude and was doing a lot of bad stupid stuff. (It was summer and hot so I figured I could eat little bowls of ice creamme no problem and then eat orange sherbet with my wife that night. I paid for this fantasy by going from A1C of 7.0 last November to 8.3 on July 6 and have gained the fear of Levemir. I hope this isn't a form of insulin made from British cows as that would put me on the Red Cross deferral list. ) I stopped working out. (This is a Friday so I am walking on the treadmill and lifting weights after work.)

When I was diagnosed on 7 May 2004, I was horrified and could have used a Support Group. I heard there was one at the Western Plains Hospital and attended one meeting. It did me no good. The four or five people there were years into the diabetics (mostly type 2) and were talking about dealing with the disease(s) at that level. There was nothing there for an "entry level diabetic" such as me.

A Blue Cross had a nurse educator called me once a month for several months and this was quite helpful.

Several months later (fall 2004), I tried to attend a meeting but learned the group had folded. I had called the Western Plains hospital several times and no one in administration could tell me anything about the group. So, my wife and I drove up there on a Thursday, before the scheduled meeting time, and found out the group had folded. A nurse who went by told us the group hadn't meet in a couple of months.

A couple of years later, I learned of another support group after it had folded.

I went to a meeting of a support group in September 2008 at the Mexican-American Ministry and came back the next month. No one showed up for the meeting but I ended up spending a hour with the facilitator (a RN, etc.) who helped me with diet information. She got a better job and that was the end of that support group.

In May 2010, I could have attended a forming meeting of a Diabetic Support Group at Western Plains Hospital but was talked into going to a "webinar" at work. This "webinar" was roughly "five minutes of material heroically crammed into an hour"  to paraphrase a saying that was popular when I was in the US Navy in the 1980s. I completely forgot about the support meeting. My boss laughed when I asked if I could get comp time for the hour I had wasted with this "webinar" and I swore off ever attending the damn things again! (Obviously, I did not get that comp time... ;-) )

The June 2010 meeting of the "new" support group was canceled due to severe weather. Imagine that, severe weather in southwest Kansas in early June!

The facilitator had to travel from Garden City to Dodge City, an arduous 55 minute trip... :-D

The July meeting was canceled due to being canceled.

I called the Western Plains Hospital and asked if they were going to have the August meeting and eventually got some one in administration who would talk with me. I was told there were no records of an August meeting being scheduled.

So, I have seen three support groups come and go at "our" local hospital and one at an underfunded Ministry.

Why is it the Grant County Public Health Department able to have a monthly support group for years and Grant county is smaller than Ford County?

The only "support group" I've got is talking with a co-worker who has been telling me the truth of taking insulin and other injected drugs. I'm not quite ready for the needle but it looks inevitable.