Being your own advocate

As many of my friends who have children or parents with serious health issue or who serious issue themselves, I am finding that you have to be aggressively your own advocate. In the early spring I was diagnosed with with Type 2 diabetes. Since you hear about it everywhere these days, I, like many, thought it was no a big deal other than I have to prick my finger every so often, watch what I eat, and exercise. I did all of those things and thought everything would be hunky-dorey going forward.

Boy, was I naive.

I also thought that after all of their education, experience, and years of sacrifice that doctors can be trusted implicitly and that their advice and directions should simply be followed and not challenged.

Again, naive.

I know this now as I sit in a hospital bed that I have finally refused to leave until a specialist started working with me and everything was figured out in a satisfactory way before I was sent on to live my life. I said enough with the Band-Aid treatments and merely sending me on my way. And they listened and we have finally made real progress.

All of which got me to thinking about being an advocate for myself in other areas of my life and how much faith and trust we place in people in all areas of our lives: health, financial, professional, families, friendship, and love. All day, every day we place our trust and faith in and make ourselves vulnerable to people for a myriad of reasons which may or may now be sound. Sometimes people pleasantly surprise us, sometimes they let us down terribly, and sometimes the outcome is safely neutral.

Events as of late and over the years have left me feeling more confident in being my own advocate and in asking for what I need in a situation and/or relationship. And, just today, I realized that it can be done--even in a town like DC full of relationships based so much on power--when I received my very first hospital visit from the Reluctant Boyfriend. I am by no means advocating hanging onto situations/relationships where it is clear nothing is ever going to be changed or compromised. However, I am simply saying that sometimes when we are strong about being our own advocate, things can change in a positive way. If not, I definitely believe in cutting bait--there are definitely better situations and people (and not just of the romantic variety) which are good for us. They may only have parts of themselves to offer us and it is up to us to decide for ourselves if it is enough.

For today, in any case, that is my version of taking responsibility for myself, my health, my happiness, and my advocacy of me.

For what it's worth,
Adriana!