Hanky Happenings

I had quite a Hanky weekend! It started out with a great talk by Dr. Kaufman at the 11th annual Memorial for Dr. Julio Santiago, a renown diabetes researcher. It is inspirational to read the obituaries of people like Santiago, it provides me with hope as I get through this transitional phase. No one will mention those transitions, you will be remembered for your greatness and the change you have left on the world. Dr. Kaufman is one of many in his wake, following in his footsteps to improve and instigate change in diabetes care.

I met Dr. Kaufman back in August and she was one of the many people that made my experience at Medtronic so memorable and enlightening. As fate would have it, I had the thought to check back in with the good folks at Medtronic a couple weeks ago to re-connect with Dr. Kaufman in just enough time to discover that she was actually coming to St. Louis to give this talk. I’m telling you all the bizarre happenings while working on Hanky Pancreas really put me in awe. While the talk was intended for physicians and diabetes educators, there I was with my bright pink Hanky Pancreas flower waiting to hand her some new designs to take back to headquarters. I also found a startling fact that there are actually 20% of Type 2′s out there on insulin pumps, making the amount of people on insulin pumps in the US much larger than I knew based on older statistics I had found. It is also interesting for me to start thinking about my designs catering to a different audience as there are in fact MORE people living with Type 2 on a pump than Type 1, it makes sense given that 90 to 95% of the diabetic population in the US in Type 2 – - but still it made me think more expansively about my collections…Anyway, it was great to catch her for a brief moment and experience her well-spoken and generous nature in my very own city.