Forget everything that Miss Congeniality and reality shows taught you about beauty pageant contestants. Sierra Sandison, the recently crowned Miss Idaho, posted this inspiring story to her Facebook page last week:
As she explains in the post, the 20-year-old completed the entire pageant—including the swimsuit portion—with an insulin pump visibly affixed to her hip. Sandison was diagnosed with type I diabetes two years ago, and taking insulin helps her manage the disease. "When I first started competing, I was using injections rather than a pump," she explained in a recent blog post. "I didn't want people to see a weird-tubey-machine-thing attached to me all the time, and could not wrap my head around having a medical device on my body for the rest of my life."
Her thinking changed, however, when she learned that Miss America 1999, Nicole Johnson, wore an insulin pump while competing in that year's Miss America pageant. "So, a year after I was diagnosed, I got a pump," blogged Sandison. "It helped me get even better control of my diabetes, and made my life SO much easier. Working up the confidence to compete with it was an entirely different journey, but this summer at Miss Idaho 2014, I finally did it."
She won the entire competition, then released a photo of herself on her Facebook page wearing the pump on stage. Immediately, her snap scored thousands of likes and launched a hashtag called #showmeyourpump, which encourages diabetics to post pics showing off their exposed pumps.
We definitely admire Sandison's guts, and we're loving the new trend of real women showing that they won't let an illness slow them down. A recent example: Bethany Townsend, 23, who released a bikini selfie that revealed her colostomy bag. Her photo went viral, and she inspired others with Crohn's disease to no longer hide the condition.
Powered by WPeMatico
No comments:
Post a Comment