Monday, May 6, 2013

Fourth Annual Diabetes Blog Week!

Wow, I never would have imagined we’d be doing Diabetes Blog Week for the fourth time, but I couldn’t be more thrilled!  As I look back on that first year, and then the second year and the third year I'm so grateful for all of the enthusiasm and support Diabetes Blog Week has received year after year from the D.O.C.  So what do you say we do it all again?



What is Diabetes Blog Week?  For those of you who haven’t participated before, the idea of Diabetes Blog Week is that bloggers sign up to post about a set topic each day for a week.  This way, readers can jump around the D-Blog Community and get a plethora of different perspective on a single topic.

When is Diabetes Blog Week?  The fourth annual Diabetes Blog Week  will take place next week, from May 13th through May 19th.

Where can I find the Diabetes Blog Week topics?  You can find the topics for next week on the Topics and Posts page.  They’ve been posted in advance, just in case you want to start drafting your posts this week.  Use these topics as a starting point for your post each day and see where it takes you.  Write as much or as little as you like.  There are no right or wrong answers - just read over the topic and start blogging!  I've also included two wild card topics to choose from.  If one day’s topic doesn’t inspire you, feel free to post about one of the wild card topics instead!

Who can participate in Diabetes Blog Week?  DBlog Week is open to anyone who blogs about diabetes - be it Type 1, Type 2, LADA, or gestational, and it’s also for parents, spouses and caregivers to someone else with diabetes.  If you blog about diabetes in any capacity, please join us!  If you don’t have a blog but have thought about starting one, now is the perfect time.  There are free blogging sites you can use (such as Blogger or Wordpress) and members of sites such as TuDiabetes or Diabetes Daily have a blog built right into their profile!

Can blogs done by groups, organizations and companies join?  I like to make Diabetes Blog Week as inclusive as possible, so yes, group blogs and professional blogs are welcome to join.  However, the posts should be written by a blogger with a diabetes connection and product plugs / advertising will not be allowed.

What if I can’t write posts for all seven days?  Of course, the idea for Diabetes Blog Week is that everyone who signs up to participate will post on all seven days.  Although that is the goal, I understand that life sometimes gets in the way, so if you end up falling short of seven posts that’s okay.  Diabetes can be stressful enough, so let’s keep DBlog Week fun and stress free!

How do I sign up?  Once again, I’ve created a form to submit your information.  Fill it out and you will be signed up and added to the Participant's List within 24 hours.  There is a space on the form for you to let me know if you have any questions, and you can also email me at any time at DBlogWeek@bittersweetdiabetes.com.  

Fill out my online form.
Will there be a master list of posts for each day?  There sure will!  I’ve included daily Link Lists on the Diabetes Blog Week topics page.  Be sure to add your blog posts to the corresponding list each day so we’ll have all posts linked in one central location - this makes it easy for people to hop around and read all of the posts.

How about the banner or button?  This year the banner and button are so much more beautiful than they were in other years - because this year I had help!!  My wonderful friend Sarah of Sarah J. Design took my idea and made it into the wonderful banner and button we'll be using this year!  (I highly recommend her if you're looking for graphics.)  If you’d like to display the banner or button on your blog you’ll find the HTML Codes below -just to make things a little bit easier.

Grab the Banner
Diabetes Blog Week
 
Grab the Button
Diabetes Blog Week

What if I want to Tweet about Diabetes Blog Week?  That would be awesome, you can use the hashtag #DBlogWeek.

I’ve tried to cover everything, but I’m sure I missed something, so please leave any questions in the comments below or email them to me at  DBlogWeek@bittersweetdiabetes.com.

Thank you all again for the overwhelming support during the last three Diabetes Blog Weeks, and I’m thrilled to be doing it a fourth time!

7 comments:

  1. Yay!

    One of the many things I love about DBlogWeek is that I always find more great blogs to follow!

    Thanks for all of your hard work on this, Karen! It's really a great thing for the community!

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  2. Totally agree, Scott! I'm so excited to be involved for the first time; my first post is up :)

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  3. Hi Karen,
    This is my first time participating in Diabetes Blog Week as well.
    What a great, diverse community of dia-bloggers this is - thank you for bringing us together.

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  4. Karen,
    This is my first time participating in Diabetes Blog Week as well.
    What a great, diverse community of dia-bloggers - thank you for bringing us all together in this way.
    Emily

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  5. This also my first Diabetes Blog Week and I am very glad to be participating. It is good to see all the people with diabetes come together.

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  6. I've been offline a while and I am playing catch up. Some of these blogs are fantastic! Thanks for having your blog week. I wasn't online in May but I would like to add a short "blurb" instead of a blog if I may...
    I am not a diabetic. I am the mother of a 19 year old T1. We have lived with this for a while and it is hard being Mom and not being able to just "fix" it. When my son was first diagnosed, he had a great attitude. He looked at D as an excuse to be healthier than the rest of us. Because our meals were well balanced at the time anyway (I only wish they still were) there was no change in eating patterns. All he (we) had to do was learn to calculate the amount of insulin he needed at meals and be sure he had snacks with him at all times. Because he was in marching band he was active. We didn't have two o'clock feedings when he was a baby but we did adjust to frequent two o'clock lows so we went through an adjustment period to try and prevent those. We made a lot of changes but they were cheerfully accepted. Then the bottom fell out of his world. So many other things happened - not good things - one right after the other that he decided D was just another unfair thing in his life. He quit checking his BG. It was a fight to get him to do anything he needed to do to keep his sugar under control. He even switched to a pump which should have made things easier - that is the closest he can come right now to an artificial pancreas- but he kept not wearing it. His A1C has been upward of 14 for the last three years. Earlier this year he was in the hospital DKA and with pneumonia. I would love to free him of the responsibility of caring for himself in order to keep him healthy - but I can't. Mom's have to let go. One of your wild cards was for a dream device. I would wish for a device that would let me manage his diabetes for him from wherever I am no matter where in the world he is. Or, I would like someone to truly not just theoretically discover how to regenerate the beta cells that took a hike and let him live the life he wants to live - free from the need to care about BGs, Insulin, Highs and Lows. Even with the convenience of the "cordless" OmniPod, pumps get in the way. I would wish for an infusion set and cgm in one that is flat so it cannot get caught on anything and is cordless yet somehow holds insulin and batteries and all of the mechanical workings. I would wish for a PDM that is an I phone App because I know he will be more inclined to use it. There is already a meter that works with an I Phone. I would wish for a CGM that would automatically adjust insulin delivery to meet his insulin needs. That would truly be close to an artificial pancreas. Of course most of all I would wish for my son to never have had the experience of understanding diabetes in the first place. That would be any mother's wish-wouldn't it?

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  7. It was great participating in my first blog week!Thanks for such a great opportunity, found some brilliant blogs and was lucky enough to have some new viewers on my own!
    Look forward to next year :)

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