Diabetes Blog Week 2011
(Just one of the whole week of posts - more on my blog www.ladalife.com)
- The testing… the endless testing… the gazillion holes in my fingers that any day now, will all decide to turn into lawn sprinklers. Why can’t you just announce my blood glucose when I ask?
- The hypos… hmmm… can find nothing good about them – nothing at all… oh, wait… maybe the treatment carbs, but then I don’t have that again until the next hypo!
- The cost of insulin pumps and diabetes supplies. Hey, did you have to make them so expensive?
- Your anti-hermit nature. I can never go live somewhere remote, can I? I always have to be near a doctor, pharmacy and a phone, while I’d sometimes love to be on a remote tropical island with no phones and no internet. Fat chance, eh?
- The public, press and some of the medical community not understanding you and the different types you appear as. Where was your imagination when you named yourself?
- The complications you do and will do, if I slip up. And you don’t care if it’s a wrong carb-guestimate, or if I get sick or if my infusion site isn’t working. You just don’t care, do you? Honestly, why punish me for the things that aren’t my fault? How mean can you be?
- Hello? Could you just stick with one doctor? Noooo… I have to go to my family doctor, an endo, a podiatrist, an eye doctor, a diabetes educator and more. And there’s always the obligatory, “Oh sorry, he’s running late”. Do you think I have nothing better to do than to sit around a stuffy old office all afternoon, waiting, and then I have to argue with them about lower carbs and TAG boluses?
- Carry-all – they should have named you that! All the stuff I have to carry around in case you decide to scream! I have a handbag that’s bigger than Ben Hur and it’s heavy… very heavy. Like I don’t have to take other stuff along too – phone, makup, notebook & pen, readers in a case, wallet, umbrella if it’s raining, Splenda packets, a hand fan (I’m over 50), … and now you want me to fit a meter, strips, finger lancer, spare infusion set, insulin, syringe, hypo food (juice, glucose and some trail mix), and a glucagon kit? I can’t even go for a walk with my dog without taking at least half of it with me. YOU try having a dog or two on a lead and struggling to walk with a hellishly large and heavy bag or shorts that threaten to end up around my ankles because the pockets are overstuffed with essentials. Or did you just want me to lift weights every day? Is that it?
- I hate you for appearing when I was 23, right when I discovered Michelin Star Restaurants and my own kitchen. Couldn’t you have waited? Couldn’t you come with an automatic dislike of carbs? Especially chocolate… that’s the kicker – velvety smooth, unctuous, rich dark chocolate that appeases all sorts of ills. Hmmm… I can have so many squares with this much insulin. Wondered why I needed all that maths at school. Now I know. You’re a nasty vindictive piece of work, aren’t you?
- The supermarket reading… the small-fonted, often-hidden nutrition information, with eyes that need reading glasses. Thanks for that one. [big eye-roll] Sunglasses on (supermarket fluorescents), pick something off shelf, sunglasses off, now readers on, put it back (too many carbs), back to sunglasses on, walk 3 feet, pick something else, sunglasses off, readers on, and so it continues around miles of aisles.
Frankly folks, I could come up with another 10 reasons far too easily, but the one thing I was thinking of all the time I was writing this is that there are people on the planet who can’t even pay for insulin and who will die without it. If anything good comes from this post and us poking fun at diabetes, let it be awareness for organisations like Insulin for Life, which provides insulin to people in third world countries. Insulin for Life needs your support! One way you can help is to donate money to help offset freight costs.
This post is part of Diabetes Blog Week 2011.
Click here to check out the topics and the links to participants