Hi everyone, I just had to share a very unpleasant experience.
Yesterday my husband and I met up with a couple of friends at a local dive bar/diner.
We were sitting in a tiny booth and it was crowded. There wasn’t much space between the table and my body so I just had my BG meter out on the table instead of my lap like I normally do. Just as I had poked my finger, the server came by our table. He looked at my finger and asked: “Are you testing your blood sugar right at the table?” I was taken aback a bit as no other server had ever commented on this in the past. I was also surprised that he knew what I was doing at all. I replies: “yes, is that a problem?” and he said in an assertive manner; “well kind of, just as long as no other customer is bothered by it. Also if you need to shoot up, do in the bathroom, we tolerate a lot of things in this place but just don’t want to bother the other tables”
At this point I got red in the face and speechless. I’ve been at this for 30 years and this was the first time any server had said anything like this to me. I said, “Actually no… I’m pretty discreet when taking insulin. Usually no one ever notices” He said, “well some customers can be bothered by this” and I said in my nicest voice “I promise no one will notice”. I was just tired after a long day and didn’t want to make a scene. This is the short version of our exchange, as it went a bit back and forth with him mentioning other tables and blah blah blah. After he left I looked at my friends and said, “this is my life. This is what I have to do just to stay alive. I will not take it to the bathroom. If someone is afraid of needles they can always avert their eyes.” I injected in my arm right there and then.
When the server came back later he must have overhead what I said to my friends because he tried to sound friendlier but he asked me casually “so did you shoot up at the table?” I said “yes, did anyone notice?” He said “no”. I said “I told you I’ll be discreet.” He really did try to be nicer and friendlier after this but it left me really shaken up. Even just him using the phrase “shooting up” bothered me. While it might be funny/cute when other PWD use it, when he used it, it felt like he was implying drug use. Like I was some junky nobody needed to see shooting up my heroin at the dinner table.
I usually get quite flustered when confronted and just immediately comply out of awkwardness so I’m happy I refused to inject in the bathroom but afterwards I felt I really should have been more assertive and less friendly. I wish I had educated him more and asked him to not use “shooting up” in reference to taking insulin. I don’t know why I beat myself up over this. I guess I’m still shocked.
Sorry to hear this… It seems we are still the only minority group that it’s tolerated to discriminate against— but some of it we can completely avoid. I just go out to my car to inject and test usually where I at least have the illusion of privacy. I have no interest in or patience for trying to educate a waiter. If he was a person capable of education he likely wouldn’t be bussing your table for a living.
I have not been at this nearly as long as you folks, but I would and have steadfastly refused to poke holes in my skin in a bathroom. I see no reason to go out to my car, and certainly none to use a public restroom to take injections. It’s simply intolerable for this waiter to have made the request. I would take my business elsewhere, and make sure that my friends did the same.
By the way, I have never had such a request made to me by restaurant staff or other customers.
Of course the answer is (I wouldn’t gave thought of it at the time either) that you would use the bathroom if the waiter would go out there and thoroughly disinfect all the surfaces and everything you might need to touch.
These experiences drive me crazy and I’m happy to say I haven’t had many. Lots of great comments here about it; here’s another discussion thread on it: https://forum.tudiabetes.org/t/where-do-you-inject. The current last comment on that thread sums it up well, to the question, Where do you inject?: “anywhere and everywhere”
@Sam19 I do like to do all of this in the car too as it gives me the privacy and convenience to inject in areas that are usually covered up by clothing without feeling like I’m giving a peep show. However I live in a very walkable city so 80% of the time I either walk to my destination or use public transportation, as was the case here.
In the beginning, I bent over backwards to be discreet. Bathroom, car, outdoors, whatever. As time has passed I have become less and less inclined to do that—less and less willing to kowtow or apologize for doing what I need to do to live.
Nowadays I often inject right at the table. And you know what? No one has noticed yet. But when and if someone does . . . they’re going to get a lecture whether they want one or not. And the lecture will be friendly or the antithesis of friendly, depending on the tone of the comment.
We need to take care of ourselves to live. Restaurant bathrooms are about half a step above gas station bathrooms when it comes to cleanliness. Some people don’t know when to mind their own business.
I’m surprised all of you are new to something like this kind of discrimination. I have had type 1 for 21 years and have never injected myself with a needle inside a restaurant. I have checked my blood sugar but that has caused a big fuss before. I have bolused with my pump a lot and believe it or not that has caused a huge fuss before. Typically I can sneak around it, but a lot of time my “friends” are uncomfortable or embarrassed by it. Unfortunately, because of this, I hardly ever eat inside restaurants anymore. And if I do, I just guess at my sugar or rely on the last reading I had. I bolus in a bathroom stall nowadays. I don’t want that medical tubing to offend someone!
I have never once tested or injected in a public bathroom. I’m not sure I’ve done either in my own bathroom! I’m not sure how I would have handled your server; I’ve never encountered that in my ten-ish years of diabetes.
But thinking about it now, in the quiet of my house, I wonder if the server’s attitude is his own, or whether he is reflecting management’s view. Generally speaking, management aren’t keen on the idea of wait staff admonishing customers for anything. Servers are routinely instructed to fetch the manager for ‘problem customers.’ So his boldness may be an indication of bigger problems in the restaurant.
It’s easy for me to write what I’d say, from here in the quiet of my house. I’d probably get up and leave on the spot, were I in that position. But having the time to think about it, I’d like to think I would speak to the manager after my meal, and ask ‘is it the restaurant’s policy to ask wait staff to admonish patrons from testing blood sugar and injecting insulin at the table?’
If she agrees that yes, the restaurant officially frowns on public injection, and in fact has a policy of asking wait staff to speak to customers doing so, well I know which restaurant I’d not be returning to. And she’d know it too.
If she is horrified to discover that a server dared speak to a customer that way, I’d be pretty sure the server would be learning something new quite soon.
I do inject in bathrooms. I can and do do it without touching anything. I was a member of the rest of the world for long enough to know that I wouldn’t have been comfortable with someone injecting meds in front of me at a restaurant table, so I dont expect others to be comfortable with me doing it. I get where you’re all coming from, but I just don’t see eye to eye on this one… its built into our entire culture that medical care and bodily functions are tended to in private-- testing bg and injecting insulin lands square in the middle of those spectrums in my estimation — I’m not sure why diabetes feels entitled to an exception to that social norm… I’m not aware of any other illness whose patients feel that way.
Anyway, that’s how I feel about injecting in public and testing blood sugar in front of others. That said its not a waiters place to scold the customers under any circumstance…
Not trying to stir up the pot just sharing my honest perspective on injecting in public…
I’ve had people think I could go ahead and bolus my pump in the car then leave the pump in the car while we dine in the restaurant. I’m not sure where their logic was on that one. I guess they didn’t want to be seen with someone with a pump.
What do you say to someone regarding that? I understand completely to not inject or test sugar in front of people - that’s kinda gross, but to pull out a pump and push buttons on something that looks like a pager? I’m not buying it. Must be some underlining reason. Maybe my friend thought that something looked wrong with me with the outstretched tubing.
Although we disagree, we’re discussing it civilly. You aren’t scolding me for my choice: you’re expressing that you have lived the same situation and are making a different choice. Bravo! That’s not so easy to share in this thread, and I appreciate hearing your thoughts.
In the same spirit of old fashioned civil discourse, I beg that the following sounds like a sharing of personal experience, and not a lecture. I test when I sit at the table, so I’ll know what to bolus shortly. I do it in my lap, mostly for my own convenience, I’ll admit, but few people notice; even the person sitting next to me in the booth misses it most of the time. The drop of blood is tiny these days, and the used strip goes into my meter case. No one sees blood, no one touches blood: I certainly don’t want my blood to come in contact with an unknown surface! I pump now, but when I injected, I did it at the table, as the salads came out. ‘At the table’ should read ‘under the table’ because that’s where my legs are, and that’s where the pen goes, into my thigh, under the table. If someone saw my hand there, they certainly didn’t see the tiny needle, nor the jab.
So basically, I find that I do in fact agree with your basic thesis: blood and needles skeeve people out. So I don’t test on the table top, nor did I spin around and draw attention to myself whilst injecting. But I did - and do - both of those things at the table because the bathroom skeeves ME out, and I weigh my certain dread against their potential dread and, well, my choice is clear enough.
I’m not sure I think of my attitude as feeling entitled to an exception, but you’ve given me food for thought. I wonder if that waiter asks people who blow their nose at the table to do it in the bathroom? Social norms can be so… fluid.
@karen57 I love the idea of leaving a card of facts! Where can I get some?
@Cocheze It’s really sad for me to hear you’ve experienced so much of this, especially since you’re using a pump! As I mentioned in my original post, this has been a first for me in 30 years of living with diabetes. All my friends have been nothing but supportive and accepting and if I need to check my BG or inject in front of someone that is relatively new to me, I give them a “courteous warning” just in case they might want to look away.
@Buck As a person who does not like to draw attention to herself, I was just kind of embarrassed and I didn’t want to cause a scene by getting a manager involved. All I wanted to do was to go on with socializing with my friends after a long day. I do have the feeling, just by the way the server handled it, that his attitude was his own and not a reflection of the establishment.
@RaDe I love inhaled insulin and have used the old experimental brand (the name escapes me, but the inhaler was huge!) in the past before it got pulled from the market. My doctor however didn’t think I could use Afrezza as its smallest dose is 4 units, which I rarely take (my bolus is between 1-3 units).
@Sam19 I’ve injected in bathrooms before and only because I was wearing something that required me to get half naked before I could get to a desired spot to poke at. Every time I do it, it revolts me, and I end up taking a bottle of hand sanitizer with me as well as alcohol swabs and it takes me FOREVER.
Every time I do it at a table, however, nobody notices. I find that in public people tend to mind themselves and the company they’re with and not look around at other people’s tables. [quote=“Sam19, post:14, topic:52130”]
I’m not sure why diabetes feels entitled to an exception to that social norm…
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I actually take offense to that. Taking my insulin in a clean environment is not a privilege or entitlement. I’m only asking to be treated like anyone else who their bodies produce their own insulin. Your comment reminded me of a friend who once confided in me that she finds amputees to be gruesome. While I won’t comment on that, what if a server asked an amputee to cover up? Where do we draw the line between our rights and someone else’s?
I just make the card on pretty business card stock from my computer. It says (in littlest letters):
Here’s a tip - I use the restroom in your establishment and others to pee or poop and wash my hands. There is no law that requires I use your restroom to administer necessary medications or test to enjoy the fare. I missed that rule on your menu… Be assured I’ll not bother your place with my diabetes again. I’ve left a card for your manager so that you can be properly commemorated for your efforts in teaching me how to dine properly with my disease.
However I live in a very walkable city so 80% of the time I either walk to my destination or use public transportation, as was the case here.
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