So you hear over and over again how diabetes can be controlled through diet and exercise but no where in those commericals do they mention that that is for type 2 diabetes instead they just say diabetes. now don’t get me wrong I know they are trying to help but without properly educating the public only has small bits of info to go off of. Today I was in the docs office for a nasty infusion site infection uggh!! and I walk to a chair and this lady is like whats that? I said oh that is my insulin pump. she said but your not fat (God Bless her ) and you don’t look like someone with diabetes your far too young and that is when I sat down and explained the different types of diabetes and she got a new understanding. I asked her though how she got her info on diabetes? she said some tv talk show. I also realized how to go about the talk without getting mad or irate since this happens more often it seems. It reminded me of the story of my DX with type 1 diabetes my Dad is a ER doc for the Army and was on deployment and my mom was talking to my dad and said I had to go to the bathroom so many times since I have been drinking so much more Juice which she thought was due too my active lifestyle with soccer and basketball and what not. they she mentioned I was really thinning out and needed new jeans so it clicked in my dads head and he told my mom to make me a doc appt to get a check up so she did and when we got there they stuck my finger and the meter they had said HI I giggled I said look mom the meter says HI and then I had lost like 15 lbs and the doc sent us to the ER where the put me in an ambulance and sent me to the Children’s hospital where we were told I had type 1 diabetes. my blood sugar was sick high over 900 and I didn’t understand but knew something was wrong because mom was on the phone with dad and she asked him if I was going to be okay and did she feed me the wrong food or what and that is the first time I learned how to explain the difference between t1 and t2. I wish we had a better way to let others know the difference or even better that the press or whoever would quite putting a bad light on diabetes. I did get to help some officers that came by the fire station last week learn to look for signs of diabetes in a person who may appear drunk while driving. I took them out to my car and showed them the car of one messy diabetic lol I showed them the used test strips my medic alert tattoo um my medic alert card with my insurance papers umm lancets glucose tabs umm ohh and the humalog pen needles lol they also got to check out a video of 1happydiabetic on what it feels like to have a low blood sugar and they left pretty informed. it was a good day I would say. ummm school is biting me on the behind I am on spring break but when it starts up again I am going at it with full force! so we will see.
