Riva Greenberg

Brooklyn, NY

You can stop diabetes right now, right in its tracks.

You can stop it from stealing your days and years ahead by using it as a wake-up call to get healthier. You can stop it from causing you heartache and grief by wrapping your arms around it like a friend and together still aim for the sun, the moon and the stars — whatever that is for you. You can stop diabetes from paralyzing you with fear, shame and guilt by meeting it with courage, strength and resilience and take pride in the grace with which you live with it.

This is what I hope I inspire in others with all the thousands of words I have written over the last seven years and all the patients I have stood in front of sharing my story across the country.

I believe we can have a great life not despite having diabetes, but because of it if we use diabetes as a catalyst to become healthier, imbue more of our simple moments with undeterred joy and begin to appreciate a more meaningful life.

What I want to stop: 1) Is the general public's ignorance about what diabetes is and what it demands 2) Health care providers who scold patients rather than inspire them and 3) Patients who see themselves as "less than" — for we are all "more than" managing diabetes every day.

Until we can stop diabetes from occurring we can stop ourselves from looking down, and instead look up and see our possibilities. I invite you to join me.

You can read more from Riva on The Huffington Post and in her books, "50 Diabetes Myths That Can Ruin Your Life and the 50 Diabetes Truths That Can Save It" and "The ABC's Of Loving Yourself With Diabetes."