Diabetes Challenge: Day 8
1. At least itâs better than cancer!
In most cases, this is well meaning, but we hate hearing it anyway. Cancer is a terminal illness that will kill you within a couple years if not months, usually. It works quickly, but, if you catch it fast enough, and youâre lucky, you can be cured. Diabetes, on the other hand, is a chronic illness that is so called because, if you take care of yourself, it will not kill you within years. However, if something else doesnât take you out first, it will kill you, slowly, and painfully. (Unless itâs from a bad low, in which case itâll be fast.) In fact, diabetes is not so much a âchronic illnessâ, so much as it is a âchronic terminal illnessâ. Everyday holds the risk that something could go wrong, and we could die. This is just as serious as cancer. It is merely different in itâs type of difficulty. Incidentally, there are cancer survivors, but no one survives diabetes. We live with it until it kills us or something else does first.
2. You donât look like youâre diabetic!
What does that even mean? What does a diabetic look like? Overweight? Well, some T1Ds are, and others arenât. We come in all shapes and sizes. Itâs an autoimmune disease, and weight has nothing to do with it. I suppose they could be thinking of the T2Ds, who are more numerous, and whose condition can be linked to weight, but even they donât have to be overweight to become insulin resistant. Sometimes life just hands you a lucky lottery ticket. Seriously, what does a diabetic look like? What on earth do you do with that statement?! Iâve never known how to respond to it. Itâs just so bizarre. I donât get what they mean by it. Is it a compliment? An insult? What is it??
3. I could never do that! Inject myself everydayâŠI hate needles!
Again, I think this one is typically well meant. I guess people are trying to say weâre brave, or strong. Hereâs the thing though, if we donât prick our fingers a minimum of four times a day, and give ourselves a minimum of 4-5 injections a day, WE WILL DIE!!! I mean, would you rather prick yourself, or give up and die? Put like that, itâs pretty good incentive. Itâs an abominable choice, but itâs not a hard one: Die, or take needles. I mean, do people saying this think we do it for fun? Because we want to? Because weâre brave? We never had a choice! We do it because we have to. Itâs never something we aspired to. Itâs another question I have trouble finding a suitable reply to: Ummm..thanks, but if I donât, Iâd die, and probably painfullyâŠ
4. Itâs sugar free! or you canât eat that, right?
These ones are also well-meaning, and of all of the above statements, are perhaps the most understandable offered. However, they are also based in ignorance. You see, everything you eat, (except protein), becomes sugar through digestion. This is why diabetics count the carbs in what they eat, so they know how much insulin to inject. Thus, the only danger with eating sugary things for us, compared to other food items, is the rate of absorption of said sugar into the blood stream. Raw white sugar, liquid sugar, (like juice, syrup, or non-diet pop), sugar tablets, frosting, and similar things that are concentrated in sugar and contain little to nothing else, can hit our blood within minutes, and cause a lot of problems, so we avoid them unless weâre low. However, that doesnât mean we canât eat chips, or cookies, or cake, or pie, or chocolate. It just means that we have to know the carb count, ration what âsweetâ things we eat, and preferably eat it with a meal to further slow the rate of absorption. With baked goods, and other such junk food, since the raw sugar is mixed in with flour, and butter, etc. it doesnât hit our system so fast as to be a danger, as long as weâre smart about it. Hence, we can eat sweet things. We just need to choose how we do it. You can offer a diabetic just about anything, besides juice, without causing offence, or rather annoyance we try not to show. Donât worry about it. It is up to us to decide, based upon our own situation and treatment strategy, what we can and cannot eat. Feel free to offer us cookies and cake! Diabetes is not âavoid sugarâ, it is calculate how much of everything you eat, and plan, plan, plan.
5. This is Diabetes in a Cup/on a Plate, or This is so sweet itâll give me Diabetes!
Listen, for T1Ds, diabetes is autoimmune; drinking sweet things did not give us T1D. We cannot prevent it. It just happens. Also, many T2Ds are equally helpless to prevent their diabetes, but even the ones who could have possibly prevented it, donât deserve to hear you saying things like âthis is diabetes in a cup.â Itâs hardly going to make them feel better now it is? T1D or T2D, itâs a cruel and ignorant joke. We donât like to hear it.
What bothers me more though is that no one would say something was âcancer in a cup,â if sugar were widely associated with cancer. In fact, cancer jokes arenât common in society at all. For that matter, people donât joke about MS, or Alzheimerâs, or allergies, or just about any other serious illness or condition. Why joke about diabetes, then? Do they realise that it is anywhere between the 5-7th most common cause of death in North America? Do they understand how deadly and debilitating it can be? They must not, because if they did, they wouldnât be joking about it. Children die in the ER with diabetes. People get arms and legs amputated with diabetes. People get nerve damage, kidney failure, and blindness with diabetes. Trust me, if drinking that âdiabetes in a cupâ does increase your risk of having diabetes, you shouldnât drink it, and you definitely shouldnât joke about it. Donât take the risk, because it just isnât worth it. Who knows? You might have to wind up living with it same as I do, but unlike you jokers apparently did, I didnât get a choice, and my life isnât a massive joke. Itâs a daily fight for survival.
Look, I know I sound harsh, and I get people say these things without thinking, (which is why I hope this will enlighten you whoâve said things like this), and, yes, I do joke sometimes with my friends and family about things to do with my diabetes, but context is so important. You see, when I joke, it is honestly dark humour. âDiabetes in a cup,â on the other hand, is jovial and trivial, and I real do feel that that is a detrimental view to spread, because having a chronic illness like that is precisely the opposite of what a such a happy-go-lucky joke would imply. Iâm hardly going to hate your guts if youâve made, or are making, such jokes. Most people, honestly do mean nothing by it, they simply donât understand, but I would hope after being made aware of how hurtful such comments actually are, you would please stop.
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