The aragonese María Rasal, a patient with type 2 diabetes, is the protagonist of a campaign which serves to make this pathology visible and make its testimony known on social networks, especially Instagram, from the hashtag #Implica2DM2, which has been launched by the Spanish Diabetes Federation (Fede) with the support of Abbott. She, like others affected later, makes public his experience, as well as the barriers he has encountered, how he has overcome them and thus to give support to other people, he assures. Rasal, in fact, affirms that "there should be no barrier" and assures that you can lead a "normal life". The only difference is that you have to maintain "certain habits" and "above all, planning."
The woman from Zaragoza points out that There have been activities that "I would not have done if I had not had diabetes: the Camino de Santiago." Another thing, she says, is that "plus, I have to carry the insulin in my backpack." Therefore, Rasal affirms that “diabetes is with me and not the other way around. "I do things and we are going to do them," he says forcefully.
Maria was diagnosed with diabetes 15 years ago (now 43). «She came out too early to be type 2», he points out. She was on pills for two years and then included insulin in the treatment.
In the campaign, she talks about the barriers she had overcome and invites others to share in order to «together make a list». For María, the first was how to face the day by day as soon as the diagnosis is obtained, since it is "a complicated disease" since it affects 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. María went to the Patients Association where she got that "Emotional Support", discovered that "there were more people like me" and began to ask questions and educate himself.
Social barriers were also overcome after wondering "how I was going to continue with my life", going little by little. The nutritional ones proposing weekly menus, "seeking comfort and planning meals" and only buying what appears on the menu. And, above all, with a lot of physical activity because although she has always been very active, "internalizing that it is just another task", which does not involve going to the gym every day, but walking, riding a bike to work, etc.
"Healthy life" essential
“Healthy living” is essential and in fact for type 2 diabetics it is “a treatment”; as well as training because "the more you know, the better." And of course, comply with the reviews because the aim is to "improve the quality of life."
She has not had any employment barriers but "other people have, "perhaps due to lack of knowledge, since they have assumed that it was fatal and not just a chronic illness." In fact, He went to the patients' association to find out information and now works there. For this reason, she is aware of education in the disease, which "before did not exist so much"; But today in hospitals there is the figure of Diabetes Educator and there "they give instructions, guidelines or help" but in the association also because "it serves to complement and reinforce the people who find it most difficult."
Regarding children with type 1 diabetes, Rasal assures that lThe main barrier is that teachers are not obliged to take measurements or give insulin and "they cannot do it alone." In this sense, he points out that the association is also going to "train dining room monitors or how to act if a colleague has a problem" so that they know how to act.
