This is a post that. . .if anyone in the DOC (Diabetes Online Community) read it, I'd probably be skewered. It's not amusing, it's not especially PC. . .it's just something I've been thinking about.
The Diabetes Sisters conference I went to back in May was really big on the whole community thing. As in, it doesn't matter if you're a Type 1 diabetic or a Type 2 diabetic. . .we've all got the 'betes. We're all a sisterhood.
That's all well and good, but I guess my dirty little secret is that. . .I think that's a load of crap.
What makes it even worse is that there are people now saying that Type 2 diabetes could potentially have autoimmune origins. That's not been proven, but it's a theory they're studying.
That's literally all I have. All I have that I can say when someone's like, "Oh, you have diabetes. You must have eaten too much sugar!" I can say, "Well, no. Type 1 is autoimmune. It just kind of happens. Type 2 is usually more lifestyle-based, although it can run in families, too, blah blah blah."
Now what do I have? "Oh, you have diabetes. You should eat less sugar." "Mine's autoimmune." "Yeah, well, they both are."
Except Type 2s can get theirs in well enough control that they don't have to take their medications anymore. That will never happen for me. I'm stuck. I'm stuck with this, and to add insult to injury, they give these two different diseases (they're not the same) the same name, and then talk about Type 2 in the media all the time because Americans aren't capable of eating right and taking care of themselves and just refer to it as "diabetes," because who cares about the 5% of diabetics who are in the same boat as me? No one cares, that's who cares. The American Diabetes Association puts more emphasis on Type 2. The Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation? They're all about the kids with Type 1.
But what about adult Type 1s? What about us? Sure, there's Diabetes Sisters. . .but that's for ALL diabetics, not just those of us who are connected to our insulin for the rest of our damn lives. It's for the Type 1s, the Type 2s, the Type 1.5s. (What the HELL is a Type 1.5?) (That's rhetorical. I don't honestly care.) They're even calling people who have a diabetic in their families Type 3 Diabetics. THAT'S NOT A THING.
It's insulting. That's all it is.
I guess this is my public rant. I'm angry about it today, and I'm tired of being put in the same category as someone who sat on their ass and ate fried Cheetos for every meal. (YES I KNOW that not all Type 2 diabetes cases are caused by lifestyle choices. But MOST OF THEM ARE.)
Showing posts with label illness. Show all posts
Showing posts with label illness. Show all posts
Tuesday, July 17, 2012
Wednesday, May 23, 2012
Thursday, September 1, 2011
The One With the Insensitive Manager
I did not complete my month-long picture project. I think you all probably guessed that would happen. Sorry. You shouldn't believe me. I lie, it seems.
D and I were at a grocery store near our house last night. It's a mid-price grocery store (WHY don't I live within walking distance of an Aldi's??), but we can walk there without much effort, so that's where we generally go.
We were checking out (ready to go home and have our Super-Healthy-Fruit-Veggie-Cheese-Wheat Thin Dinner Extravaganza) when I heard one of the night managers talking to the little bagger girl.
"If you don't stop eating so much sugar," he said, loudly, "you're going to get diabetes. You'll go blind in one eye, and one of your legs will have to be chopped off."
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Um, what?
Not only is that NOT HOW YOU GET DIABETES, but the type of diabetes that is more toward the lifestyle side of things is 90% of diabetics. The other lucky 10%, myself included, get it because, uh, our autoimmune systems spontaneously decide to say, "ATTACK THE PANCREAS!"
My immediate thought was to go over to the guy (who was a manager, of all people. Someone who should know better), grab him by his polo-shirt collar, throw him up against the wall and yell, "Why don't you SHUT YOUR WHORE MOUTH about things you KNOW NOTHING ABOUT, you effing DOUCHENOZZLE?!"
Then I figured, well, it's better to tell his manager. Because if I yell at him, HE will know he did something wrong, but he will likely not care. But if his manager is aware he did something wrong, she will speak to him, and possibly his co-workers would all be like, "Oooooh, you're in trooooubllllleeeeee."
Note: "Trouble" is a difficult word to elongate.)
D went up there and spoke to the manager in order to find out Douchenozzle's name, and then I gave her a call. She was very nice, very apologetic, and very horrified when I told her what they guy had said.
I sort of wanted to see him get fired, but that was just my bum pancreas talking.
I stayed irritated for hours after we left, and I was irritated when I woke up.
If you're diabetic, you're allowed to tell diabetic jokes. You're allowed to talk about how you could get your foot chopped off, or how you could go blind, or whatever. You're allowed to say things that are ridiculous and untrue about your own disease. Humor is a coping mechanism.
We diabetics (and I'm going to make this statement even smaller and say we Type 1s) deal with this bullshit every day. When I wake up, I'm strapped to an insulin pump. If I weren't strapped to a pump, I'd need to take injections. I have to stick my fingers multiple times daily. I have to count carbohydrates in what I eat to know how much insulin to take. Most people's pancreases do that for them. Mine decided it had a better job offer.
It would be like telling a cancer survivor a cancer joke. Or making one of those ubiquitous Dead Baby Jokes to someone who's had 5 miscarriages and is going through those hormone therapies. It's. . .not funny. You don't know what the hell you're talking about. As soon as you've had your blood sugar climb toward 600 because your pump isn't working or you wake up disoriented, having lost hours of your day due to low blood sugar you didn't even know you had, THEN you can talk about going blind and cutting your feet off.
There's a fine line, I think. On one of the blogs I read, the author made a diabetes-related joke that I actually thought was pretty funny. The deal there is, if you go to this particular blog, you need to prepare yourself for irreverance and possibly being insulted.
But I don't go to the grocery store thinking I'm going to be insulted and joked about.
And then I got to thinking. I was diagnosed in October of 1989. I was 4. I have to wonder how that guy would feel if he knew that a newly-diagnoses 4-year-old had heard what he said and spent the next week and a half crying every night before going to bed, maybe even IN bed, because she thinks she's going to go blind or lose one of her legs. How funny is THAT, Mr. Comedian?
It's people you don't know, it's people you do know. . .no one really knows how this effects people like me. My college best friend told a friend of his once that he was getting tired of how dramatic I was being about the whole diabetes thing, how I was doing stuff to get attention. (This was after I woke up at 4 in the afternoon, in the shower, not knowing how I'd gotten there or what else I'd done that day.) No one gets it, but that doesn't mean you have to air your ignorance in public.
I don't care about the parents of diabetics who get all up in arms offended about every little thing. I care about that little kid who may not quite realize yet that this is forever. It's not a death sentence, but they're taking it with them to the end. I have an aunt that died, most likely, from complications from Type 1. I'm on my 22nd anniversary this year and have thus far avoided the macular degeneration that generally begins around the 20th year. I'm grateful for that.
But I'd love to take Mr. DoucheComedian and put a small, ticking time bomb inside of him. He doesn't know when it's going to go off (if it goes off at all) and he doesn't know what'll happen when it does go off. . .how bad the damage will be or whatever. He just knows it's there, and there's nothing he can do about it.
And then I'll go make jokes about it. Not TO him, but near him, so he can go home and think about his bomb, and other people's perceptions of his bomb. I'd like him to have a bomb that is similar in name to another type of bomb, but to have few people know the difference, so they're constantly telling him how to deal with his bomb, and how he could have prevented his bomb, and the like. Like they know ANYTHING about his bomb.
OK, now I'm rambling, so I'll stop. I'm sorry.
Don't joke about or talk about things you literally know nothing about. It makes you look bad, and makes me not want to shop at your store anymore.
That's all.
D and I were at a grocery store near our house last night. It's a mid-price grocery store (WHY don't I live within walking distance of an Aldi's??), but we can walk there without much effort, so that's where we generally go.
We were checking out (ready to go home and have our Super-Healthy-Fruit-Veggie-Cheese-Wheat Thin Dinner Extravaganza) when I heard one of the night managers talking to the little bagger girl.
"If you don't stop eating so much sugar," he said, loudly, "you're going to get diabetes. You'll go blind in one eye, and one of your legs will have to be chopped off."
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Um, what?
Not only is that NOT HOW YOU GET DIABETES, but the type of diabetes that is more toward the lifestyle side of things is 90% of diabetics. The other lucky 10%, myself included, get it because, uh, our autoimmune systems spontaneously decide to say, "ATTACK THE PANCREAS!"
My immediate thought was to go over to the guy (who was a manager, of all people. Someone who should know better), grab him by his polo-shirt collar, throw him up against the wall and yell, "Why don't you SHUT YOUR WHORE MOUTH about things you KNOW NOTHING ABOUT, you effing DOUCHENOZZLE?!"
Then I figured, well, it's better to tell his manager. Because if I yell at him, HE will know he did something wrong, but he will likely not care. But if his manager is aware he did something wrong, she will speak to him, and possibly his co-workers would all be like, "Oooooh, you're in trooooubllllleeeeee."
Note: "Trouble" is a difficult word to elongate.)
D went up there and spoke to the manager in order to find out Douchenozzle's name, and then I gave her a call. She was very nice, very apologetic, and very horrified when I told her what they guy had said.
I sort of wanted to see him get fired, but that was just my bum pancreas talking.
I stayed irritated for hours after we left, and I was irritated when I woke up.
If you're diabetic, you're allowed to tell diabetic jokes. You're allowed to talk about how you could get your foot chopped off, or how you could go blind, or whatever. You're allowed to say things that are ridiculous and untrue about your own disease. Humor is a coping mechanism.
We diabetics (and I'm going to make this statement even smaller and say we Type 1s) deal with this bullshit every day. When I wake up, I'm strapped to an insulin pump. If I weren't strapped to a pump, I'd need to take injections. I have to stick my fingers multiple times daily. I have to count carbohydrates in what I eat to know how much insulin to take. Most people's pancreases do that for them. Mine decided it had a better job offer.
It would be like telling a cancer survivor a cancer joke. Or making one of those ubiquitous Dead Baby Jokes to someone who's had 5 miscarriages and is going through those hormone therapies. It's. . .not funny. You don't know what the hell you're talking about. As soon as you've had your blood sugar climb toward 600 because your pump isn't working or you wake up disoriented, having lost hours of your day due to low blood sugar you didn't even know you had, THEN you can talk about going blind and cutting your feet off.
There's a fine line, I think. On one of the blogs I read, the author made a diabetes-related joke that I actually thought was pretty funny. The deal there is, if you go to this particular blog, you need to prepare yourself for irreverance and possibly being insulted.
But I don't go to the grocery store thinking I'm going to be insulted and joked about.
And then I got to thinking. I was diagnosed in October of 1989. I was 4. I have to wonder how that guy would feel if he knew that a newly-diagnoses 4-year-old had heard what he said and spent the next week and a half crying every night before going to bed, maybe even IN bed, because she thinks she's going to go blind or lose one of her legs. How funny is THAT, Mr. Comedian?
It's people you don't know, it's people you do know. . .no one really knows how this effects people like me. My college best friend told a friend of his once that he was getting tired of how dramatic I was being about the whole diabetes thing, how I was doing stuff to get attention. (This was after I woke up at 4 in the afternoon, in the shower, not knowing how I'd gotten there or what else I'd done that day.) No one gets it, but that doesn't mean you have to air your ignorance in public.
I don't care about the parents of diabetics who get all up in arms offended about every little thing. I care about that little kid who may not quite realize yet that this is forever. It's not a death sentence, but they're taking it with them to the end. I have an aunt that died, most likely, from complications from Type 1. I'm on my 22nd anniversary this year and have thus far avoided the macular degeneration that generally begins around the 20th year. I'm grateful for that.
But I'd love to take Mr. DoucheComedian and put a small, ticking time bomb inside of him. He doesn't know when it's going to go off (if it goes off at all) and he doesn't know what'll happen when it does go off. . .how bad the damage will be or whatever. He just knows it's there, and there's nothing he can do about it.
And then I'll go make jokes about it. Not TO him, but near him, so he can go home and think about his bomb, and other people's perceptions of his bomb. I'd like him to have a bomb that is similar in name to another type of bomb, but to have few people know the difference, so they're constantly telling him how to deal with his bomb, and how he could have prevented his bomb, and the like. Like they know ANYTHING about his bomb.
OK, now I'm rambling, so I'll stop. I'm sorry.
Don't joke about or talk about things you literally know nothing about. It makes you look bad, and makes me not want to shop at your store anymore.
That's all.
Wednesday, May 5, 2010
The One Where I'm a Hypochondriac
I am dying.
I am dying of some horrible, horrible thing that possibly hasn't even been discovered yet, but I have it because I am 3 steps ahead of science.
Whenever something feels weird, especially when my head is involved, I get really paranoid. Maybe I watch too much Grey's Anatomy/Scrubs/House/Etc., but when something doesn't feel right, I go straight for the most awful thing ever.
Me: My head is hurting. Oh my God, it's never hurt like this before. OH MY GOD, I have a brain tumor. Or meningitis. No. Definitely a brain tumor.
Whomever I'm talking to: Have you had caffeine today? Maybe it's a caffeine headache.
Me: . . . . .NO! It's a BRAIN TUMOR!
I don't know why I always immediately jump to worst case scenario, but I do, and I've been doing that for the last 48 hours or so. My inner ears have been hurting since Monday-ish, and then I felt fuzzy headed and dizzy yesterday, and today, I woke up feeling like my eardrums, both of them, were going to explode.
Me: Oh my God, my ear drums are going to explode and I'll be deaf forever.
D: Maybe you have an inner ear infection. You should probably go to the doctor.
Me: . . . .NO! My eardrums are going to explode and I'm going to go deaf and I'm going to waste valuable hearing time going to the doctor and why would you suggest such a thing WHY DON'T YOU LOVE ME ANYMORE?
D: . . . . . . . .
I did not end up going to the doctor, because they were feeling better once I got up and around and even better once I got to work. But if they get worse, I will probably break down and go to the doctor.
I did go to the dentist today, which is one of my top 5 least favorite things to do. I should note that both my dentist and the dental hygienist (sp?) are lovely people of whom I am quite fond, but it's the IDEA of the dentist that I dislike, and not so much my dentist herself. I don't like people being that close me to with their hands in my mouth. I also don't like the pokey metal Instruments of Torture they use.
Since I'm diabetic, I am more prone to having gum trouble. Therefore, flossing is something I should do often. The thing is. . .sometimes you're running late and don't think about it. And sometimes, you've brushed your teeth and have already gotten into bed by the time you remember it. And sometimes. . .you just don't feel like it.
I will be the first to admit that I'm not the best flosser. HOWEVER! I do not buy that the fact I'm a bad flosser is the ONLY reason why my gums bleed when they start stabbing me with their Instruments of Torture.
"Your gums are bleeding because you don't floss enough, Sarah," they say.
What I want to say (but don't, obviously) is, "No! My gums are bleeding because you are stabbing them with pointy metal things."
But I digress.
Since my teeth have "soft spots" caused by improperly formed enamel, and have therefore been sealed, and one of those seals, apparently, came off, I have to go back and get a filling. As it turns out, fillings are expensive. However, Mom said she and my Sdad would help me pay for it, so that's awesome. (Me being poor and all.) So I'll be back in the dentist's chair in the next couple of weeks, this time with Instruments of Torture INTENDED to cause me pain aimed at my face. Which is awesome in the not-so-awesome sort of way.
I am dying of some horrible, horrible thing that possibly hasn't even been discovered yet, but I have it because I am 3 steps ahead of science.
Whenever something feels weird, especially when my head is involved, I get really paranoid. Maybe I watch too much Grey's Anatomy/Scrubs/House/Etc., but when something doesn't feel right, I go straight for the most awful thing ever.
Me: My head is hurting. Oh my God, it's never hurt like this before. OH MY GOD, I have a brain tumor. Or meningitis. No. Definitely a brain tumor.
Whomever I'm talking to: Have you had caffeine today? Maybe it's a caffeine headache.
Me: . . . . .NO! It's a BRAIN TUMOR!
I don't know why I always immediately jump to worst case scenario, but I do, and I've been doing that for the last 48 hours or so. My inner ears have been hurting since Monday-ish, and then I felt fuzzy headed and dizzy yesterday, and today, I woke up feeling like my eardrums, both of them, were going to explode.
Me: Oh my God, my ear drums are going to explode and I'll be deaf forever.
D: Maybe you have an inner ear infection. You should probably go to the doctor.
Me: . . . .NO! My eardrums are going to explode and I'm going to go deaf and I'm going to waste valuable hearing time going to the doctor and why would you suggest such a thing WHY DON'T YOU LOVE ME ANYMORE?
D: . . . . . . . .
I did not end up going to the doctor, because they were feeling better once I got up and around and even better once I got to work. But if they get worse, I will probably break down and go to the doctor.
I did go to the dentist today, which is one of my top 5 least favorite things to do. I should note that both my dentist and the dental hygienist (sp?) are lovely people of whom I am quite fond, but it's the IDEA of the dentist that I dislike, and not so much my dentist herself. I don't like people being that close me to with their hands in my mouth. I also don't like the pokey metal Instruments of Torture they use.
Since I'm diabetic, I am more prone to having gum trouble. Therefore, flossing is something I should do often. The thing is. . .sometimes you're running late and don't think about it. And sometimes, you've brushed your teeth and have already gotten into bed by the time you remember it. And sometimes. . .you just don't feel like it.
I will be the first to admit that I'm not the best flosser. HOWEVER! I do not buy that the fact I'm a bad flosser is the ONLY reason why my gums bleed when they start stabbing me with their Instruments of Torture.
"Your gums are bleeding because you don't floss enough, Sarah," they say.
What I want to say (but don't, obviously) is, "No! My gums are bleeding because you are stabbing them with pointy metal things."
But I digress.
Since my teeth have "soft spots" caused by improperly formed enamel, and have therefore been sealed, and one of those seals, apparently, came off, I have to go back and get a filling. As it turns out, fillings are expensive. However, Mom said she and my Sdad would help me pay for it, so that's awesome. (Me being poor and all.) So I'll be back in the dentist's chair in the next couple of weeks, this time with Instruments of Torture INTENDED to cause me pain aimed at my face. Which is awesome in the not-so-awesome sort of way.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)