Diabetes Blog Week: Clean It Out

Day 3 is about cleaning out, whether something physical or emotional in your diabetes closet. Check it out here. Considering I'm having a difficult time keeping up with daily posts in addition to my day job, family, spring chaos, and training our 3 month old puppy, which is somehow causing major hypoglycemic episodes, so much so that I've got to have a temp basal rate decrease of 30% if I'm home, I'll keep this one short and sweet.

We've all had those random interactions with people regarding our diabetes that are so shocking that even though it happened months, years, or decades ago, we're still retelling the story or at least rethinking it once in awhile. I'm going to try to just let a few of those go, right here, right now.

Here goes...

In college (so here's my decades ago one) a girl I met at a party was chatting with me and shared she was a nursing student and I was prenursing so the conversation headed to why we were considering nursing. I shared my many visits with nurses and doctors growing up because I had diabetes. Her response was, "Wow, you must've been really fat when you were a child."  I just walked away. The next morning I dropped my classes to complete for application to the nursing program and ended up with an elementary education degree.

Several people I've met over the last several years that know me fairly well and get into one of the selling schemes of various vitamins or supplements end up calling me and telling me about these amazing products. They are so great, people have started them that had diabetes and suddenly, poof, they're cured! Shocking that since diagnosis in 1979 I heard every few years, "Just 5 more years and there will be a cure," that none of those medical experts nor the bazillion dollars spent on research haven't picked up a bottle of these miracle vitamins, I'll be sure to send along the memo...

And last but not least, just a few completely ignorant individuals who've shared random ignorant statements such as, but not limited to, "I wish I could just wear a pump and let that take care of it all for me, you're so lucky to have type 1," says a person with type 2 directly to me who clearly doesn't understand the difference or what I do on a moment by moment basis to ensure tight control, or the woman who claims to be an expert in diabetes, a sales representative in the industry, who says, "I'm so jealous of you diabetics, you can just take more insulin and eat whatever you want. Sometimes I wish I could be diabetic." I guess she missed that day of training where she learns that a person who is unlucky enough to not have diabetes makes her own insulin! This one left me speechless, which is rare...

I can't promise I won't retell any of these tales or reconsider what I wish I would've said instead of walking away or ignoring in shock, but I am going to let it go, clean it out, and forgive. Ignorance may be bliss to the ignorant but the other one who has the experience or knowledge, anything but...