Kenneth R. Ellis M.S.

For more than twenty years I've facilitated either hospital or community diabetes support groups in several states, helping hundreds of people during those years. Starting in 1992, I decided to help others to meet the challenge of diabetes by starting a diabetes support group at Good Samaritan Hospital in Kearney, Nebraska with the help of my doctor. I was able to meet, serve, and encourage hundreds of people over the next few years, and I continue to do so wherever I live. I believe encouraging others has been one of the important keys for me to manage my diabetes for the last twenty-five years. The following is an example of one of the people I was able to help. “Ever since I met you, things have gone so much better for me,” said a person that I initially met in the hospital. The certified diabetes educator requested that I come visit him. He was non-compliant, putting sheets over his head when nurses and others tried to teach and help him. But since I had had diabetes since I was seven, and he since he was about thirteen, he opened up to me. He was about thirty-three at that time. He eventually ended up on peritoneal kidney dialysis. He also was put on a transplant list and, months later, received a kidney and pancreas. Then a few months later, he was involved in a train/car wreck, breaking numerous ribs, his arm, and femur, and sustaining severe trauma to his head. He made the statement “Ever since I met you things have gone so much better for me,” after being in rehab for months. But ever since I met him, he had been learning about God’s love and way of wisdom, and that knowledge was making a real difference in his life!