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Author—Public Speaker |
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Marybeth A. Traut |
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Welcome To Diabetes In The Family |
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To Contact Us: Marybeth A. Traut “Diabetes In The Family” P.O. Box 148 Girard, PA 16417 E-Mail: marybethtraut@marybethtraut.com
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Survival Mode I was diagnosed with a brain tumor a few years ago. I have tried my very best to continue to write and speak about and for Diabetes. I will continue to do so until I can no longer. All of my speaking has been donation. I have not charged for my food demonstrations nor have I charged for my speaking engagements. I continue to donate from the sale of my books to the various diabetes associations. However, like everything else, I must make some changes. As of this writing I am spending a minimum of 65% of my income to keep myself covered by health insurance and medical expenses, such as doctors appointments and medications, as well as co-pays and deductibles. I am literally being tapped out to stay alive. I recently (09-09-2009) had my 3rd brain surgery in 3 years. I don’t know how people do it. I don’t know how they can afford to pay for medical expenses and still manage to pay for every day life. I can see how people are losing their homes, their savings, their lives due to medical costs. I will continue to talk as long as possible. I will continue to give as long as I can give. I have just had to become more creative in my funding. I am no longer able to work as I was prior to my illness, so I have had to become creative. It makes me chuckle when I think I have worked since I was 15 years old and now that I need help….am told that there is none available. Yet, I look around and see those who have every opportunity to work and all the physical capabilities and yet they choose not to and there is help for them. However, I will NOT allow myself to become angry, depressed or simply give up. Instead I will continue to “try” to find resources to keep myself alive one more day. I thank God every single day for my sister, with whom I live. For without her, I would most definitely be living on the streets, IF I was still alive. Without her support I am not sure where I would be. I thank God every day for my brother as well. He has been a support and financial angel more times than I care to admit. God Bless BOTH of them!! On the pages to follow you will find totes. They are wonderful, absolutely amazing quality totes. I am asking you to consider purchasing them for gifts, for yourself, for clients. In turn, the proceeds from these totes will be used to continue my quest to educate about diabetes. The proceeds will also, help to keep me alive one more day. Thank you for purchasing Totes with Notes. May God Bless you as he continues to bless me!! I will continue to write and support the diabetes associations with the sale of our story, my book, “Diabetes In the Family.” We all have a story to share…..And we all need to share them. For whatever reason, but mostly to educate. I have written our story to share with you. Are you sharing your story with others? When someone is diagnosed with diabetes they let out a sigh of relief. Most often they are diagnosed after they have begun experiencing damage. So, they are experiencing some type of pain. They don’t know what the cause of that pain is, so they begin to imagine. Like most of us, the imagination is not always a good thing. So, questions begin to circle their thoughts, “Is it cancer?” “Is it my heart?” “Am I going to die?” When the results come in often times it is; “Whoosh, it is ONLY diabetes!” When they realize it is not cancer, it is not their heart, they rejoice. Which is a good thing, to a point. I saw it with my dad. I saw it with my mom. I don’t want to see it anymore. It is like an overly relaxed feeling. There are no changes. Their life goes on as before. I wish I could find a way to make others realize that they need to make changes from day one. I wish I could get people to understand that even the smallest changes would make the biggest difference. I wish I could make people see that by ignoring diabetes they are giving over all power to their disease. I want people to know what will happen, but I don’t want to scare them into even more ignorance. What I mean by that is this; if someone knows something bad is going to happen, they tend to pretend that it does not exist. If it does not exist, then it won’t happen. Have you ever seen a small child who does not want to see you or hear you? They close their eyes, plug their ears and tell themselves, I cannot see you, therefore you do not exist. I see too many people doing that with diabetes. If I pretend I don’t have diabetes, then in fact I don’t have diabetes. I WISH that it worked that way. However, we all know it does not work that way, unfortunately. So, I want you to read our story. I want you to share your story. I want the story about diabetes to be heard. Not just heard, but paid attention to. Can you help me? Can you tell me “HOW” I can start the process of spreading our story, your story? I wish our story was one that was all sugar and spice and everything nice, but I can’t say that, we all know it is not. Our story is one of pain and sorrow as well as laughter and joy, but it is also, one full of information and honesty as well. There is too much information about diabetes out there that kind of candy coats it all. I know it is so that people are willing to listen, but who is doing any good by that? If you don’t think it is going to do damage, do you pay more attention to it? If you think it only affects you and no one else, do you take it more seriously? I wish I could say you are right, but we all know it isn’t true. If I were to tell you that by reading our story you may for the first time realize that you are not the only one on the “Diabetes Ride” - would you read it? If I told you that after reading our story you would learn more about diabetes then you possibly knew, would you read it? If I told you that after reading our story that you may be forced to face your own story for the first time, would you pick up a copy? I don’t know...you read it and tell me...
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