Janet Wilpstra loves to help people with diabetes how their choices will affect their long-term health.
And the Wyoming woman has received a national award for her work as a Certified Diabetes Educator.
Wilpstra, a nurse at the North Lambton Community Health Care Centre, has received the Canadian Diabetes Educator Certification Board’s CDE Award of Dedication.
Her colleagues who nominated her for the award say she is an “inspirational diabetes educator” who “is creative in trying unique ways to motivate clients and move conversation and celebrates all successes, however small, with everyone she works with.”
“I absolutely love what I do, having that joy of working with people who really have a lot on their plate but you’re trying to make some progress…work together on the goals, hopeful sense that I really care for them.”
And Wilpstra knows more about what they’re going through than her clients realize. Wilpstra has been a Type One diabetic for 22 years. “Diabetes can be a very overwhelming diagnosis
I understand what that feels like,” she says. Although Wilpstra leads a productive life she says “You never forget you have diabetes, with every decision I make, there is never a time that diabetes is not in the back of my mind.”
Wilpstra says she tries to help her clients deal with the “balancing act” that comes with any type of diabetes. “Their day-to-day choices could affect those long-term complications.”
Wilpstra was recognized for forming partnerships which helped provide glasses for people in need and foot care clinics for others.