June 2007 Vol. 26. No. 6

Published by the Humboldt Senior Resource Center in Eureka, California. HSRC is a non-profit community-based organization offering services for senior citizens, multi-generational families and caregivers.

Learning about diabetes: New resident fills a niche, finds a home
Free seminar - Diabetes on a Budget
Senior directory: It's time to update your information
Seminar series: June 14 launches Sheriff's safety seminars

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Margaret Stevens in her Eureka home. Photo by Barbara Clark

Margaret Stevens brought a wealth of expertise with her when she moved to Humboldt County with her husband Jim in 2004. For nine years she had published the ÅgDiabetes UpdateÅh newsletter in Long Beach, created to educate the physician staff at her medical group. The mailing list grew to 3,600.

A registered nurse, Stevens had planned to retire when she moved here. But as callings do, her vocation found her instead. She's a diabetes educator, finding herself on telephone consultations or in-home visits for hours each day. Since she's been here, she's worked in Lima Pharmacy's Diabetes Day of Care and Lima's and Cloney's Health and Wellness Expo last year.
She is one of the presenters at the Area Agency's free seminar June 19 at the Wharfinger Building, Diabetes on a Budget.

She has been in love with the house at the corner of 15th and I streets since she visited Eureka as a child. When it finally came on the market last year, the Stevenses made sure they got it. Her husband, Jim, Ågflips housesÅh - buys fixers, rehabs them and puts them back on the market. Now their house is lovingly restored, a historic Eureka Victorian beauty.

Stevens doesn't charge for her diabetes consultations. ÅgIt's a great gift to be able to reach people who need the information. This is the way it should be,Åh Stevens explained. She was the first runner-up for the national Diabetes Educator of the Year in 2000.

She said there are two types of diabetes - type 1 and type 2. Type 1 is also known as juvenile diabetes, but it is not completely a childhood form.

Type 2 diabetes, she said, is a chronic disease that is preventable. People who have a family history of the disease are highly likely to develop it. But also, anyone who is older than 40 and overweight can develop it. Stress can bring on diabetes, as can excessive alcohol use, injury, illness or existing treatment with steroids.
The treatments for type 2 diabetes are diet and exercise, oral medications and insulin injections.

ÅgWe're asking people to change the habits of a lifetime," Stevens said, Ågand people have trouble with that. We have to get them to change their diets. Our parents grew up in the Depression and learned to clean their plates. Now we have to teach people not to do that.Åh

Exercise, she explained, doesn't need to be formal. Park further away when you go to the grocery store, walk down every aisle at the store, walk to the corner, walk with a friend.

ÅgThere is no cure,Åh she added. ÅgIt's either under control or not under control. If people lose weight, they gain control - they don't cure it.Åh

Despite its reputation, diabetes is not a ÅgseniorÅh disease. Twenty-five to 30 percent of new cases of type 2 diabetes are now diagnosed in children younger than age 18, attributed to the growing problem of obesity in young people.

Margaret Stevens said the web site www.diabetes.org has a lot of information about the disease. She is available for individual, family and group instruction. Her phone is 845-7117, and her e-mail is heartfeltcards@hotmail.com.

Barbara Clark is editor of Senior News.