Due to recent exciting news events, I’ve moved my trip down memory lane to Friday this week…
Another wonderful fellow D-blogger, Lee Ann Thill, recently posed a question on Facebook: “who exactly is responsible when people with diabetes aren’t ‘good’ diabetics?” Over 30 replies ensued, as this perennial question brings up all sorts of fundamental issues of living with diabetes: proper access to education and medical care, family support, diligence and “compliance,” and issues of blame and guilt.
Lee Ann followed up with a moving blog post, “Another Round of the Blame Game.” There’s so much to appreciate in this heartfelt testimonial. But one passage that stuck out to me was this:
“The treatment protocol is ridiculous and labor-intensive. Pretending to be a pancreas day in and day out isn’t as fun as it sounds. If doing this crap every day until I die isn’t a complete time/energy/emotion succubus, I don’t know what is. People without diabetes only have the hardship of imagining living like this for a few seconds before they have the luxury of conveniently dismissing it as not as bad as we say it is without ever really having to do it.”
Well said, Lee Ann! But what about the blame we place on ourselves? I consider myself pretty conscientious about my D-care. But does this qualify me as a “good diabetic,” even when I know I have some pretty sloppy habits?
It all brought me back to this post, originally published two years ago:
True Confessions of a Good Diabetic
I read other PWD’s blogs, and they always seem like they have it so together. But then again, when fellow diabetics meet me in person, they seem to think I have it all figured out, too. Closer to the truth is probably that we’re all just taking it day by day. And man, do I stray sometimes:
Sometimes I don’t test for HOURS after I eat. I just lose track of time. Or I can’t be bothered stopping whatever all-important thing I’m doing to get the out the gear and do what I know I should.
I don’t carry around backup insulin. I did tote around a vial of Apidra for a few weeks one time, and it went bad, so that turned me off. Now I just carry a single syringe in my OmniPod case, with the vague idea that if the Pod fails while I’m out and about, I could draw up the insulin out of the defunct Pod. I really need to test that theory empirically soon.
I never eat bread, but every once in a while I snarf up almost an entire bag of Quaker cheddar rice cake snacks — to the tune of at least 75g carbs in one sitting. Yipes! My B-A-D. (And to think that most folk consider rice cakes “diet food”…)
I put off getting my lipid panel test for up to two months sometimes, because I can’t stand the fasting thing. Not eating breakfast before I leave the house makes me feel weak and off-the-scales cranky. Thankfully, my hubby’s willing to make it a “lab date” and take me out to breakfast afterwards. I hereby apologize for everything that happens before we hit the café, Honey.
On good BG days, I often push the bolus wizard button on my pump just for the satisfaction of seeing the “0.0 Units Recommended” message. Haha!
On bad BG days, I often think, “Oh, what the Hell?” and I indulge in “taboo” foods like a big bowl of frozen yogurt or a nice chewy granola bar chock full of raisins. (What?! I’m messed up already, aren’t I?)
When I go on hikes, often I take along glucose tablets only. That means I even leave my meter behind, which in my case is also my insulin pump controller — which would freak out many a tethered insulin pumper, I know. But sometimes one just NEEDS to be hands-free and medgadget-free. At least for a few hours.
I walk barefoot around the house (in warm weather) and I rarely check my feet for injuries. Luckily, my City-Gal feet are so delicate that I could probably feel a single flax seed in my shoe. I also like purty shoes, the kind that aren’t necessarily D-friendly.
So am I still a “good diabetic”? Yes, I think so. Am I a perfect? Um, noooo. A control freak at heart, diabetes has clearly helped me to wean myself off the more neurotic strain of perfectionism. Hopefully I’m morphing into the good kind of perfectionist — one little diabetes defiance at a time.
Okay, this gave me a good chuckle.
My mother says my Uncle Chris was a “bad diabetic.” Okay, mom, what do you mean he was a BAD diabetic. Give me a break. She has no idea why she says that. Now, mind you, my mother is 90. She didn’t take a daily prescription drug until she was 89, and that just pisses her off. Anne, you’ve got to be kidding.
I never test enough, of course. I rely on my inner ability to know (that’s a joke, eh?). But, I remember when I was in the hospital with an A1C out the wazoo, when a “diabetes educator” advised that I was to always insert a new stick needle into the sticker (how’s that for non-technical lingo) before I tested. I just laughed and suggested that the manufacturer came up with that rule.
As for bare feet, I was so upset reading the literature about never going barefoot. I’m a beach girl. No bare feet? No way.
Ahhh, I’m a BAD diabetic.
I don’t like “good” or “bad” diabetic being thrown around. Let alone blame.
We are human. We are all different. We each manage and Deal (react) to our disease and regimen differently.
You cannot define Diabetes, it does its thing as do humans.
I say we are as healthy as we Choose to be. Disease or not.
We are human, first and foremost. Enough said.
My grand-uncle, my father’s uncle, had T1 diabetes from the age of 30 until his recent death at the age of 87 or so. He ate cakes and took insulin for it (although I’m not sure he was aware of carb counting at the time), he survived for 47 years…that means he survived from roughly 1948-50 (rough guess, as I think he died in 2007). He saw a lot of development of insulin and testing technologies. Anyway, I’m sure that he had his share of frustrations, tiredness, and not knowing where he was at. Consider this from Walgreens:
§ Urine test strips cannot detect glucose (sugar) until the blood glucose level is above 180 mg/dl. This means a person’s blood sugar level could still be high (hyperglycemia) or even dangerously low (hypoglycemia) but still not be detected.
§ Urine glucose testing is highly subject to user error because it requires color interpretation of the urine test strip via a color-scale comparison. This becomes an issue with people who are colorblind or have poor eyesight, and certain drugs and vitamin C can change the color of the urine and thus provide an invalid measurement.
§ The reading reflects the level of blood glucose from a few hours earlier—not at the present moment—and often is misinterpreted.
Can you imagine living that way back in the early days of diabetes care? Because of the technology, he was a “bad” diabetic. But in reality, we all have to deal with the problems associated with diabetes. It’s not our fault and we should stop with the self-blame. Nevertheless, we will always have people who might try to “blame” us for being a “bad” diabetic. I believe in what Crystal said earlier: “I say we are as healthy as we Choose to be. Disease or not. We are human, first and foremost. Enough said.”
If you have a “much-too-caring person” in your life, you have to let them know that you are doing the best you can, and that although their concerns are nice, they have to let you (the diabetic) deal with it, because you know how you feel, and you know you are doing the best you can. Hope this helps!
Mike
I’m a bad diabetic, I hate to say. I try to stick to an eating plan during the week, but a couple of trips out of the house to networking meetings and I feel like I’ve thrown everything off. This past week, for instance, I know I took my medication twice one day, and another day I forgot to take my shots of insulin; that’s not good.
Then, because I’ve deprived myself throughout the week, I do stupid things on the weekend when my wife isn’t around, like eat an entire cake (okay, a small cake, but an entire cake nonetheless), then feel guilty afterwards.
It’s tough maintaining a balance between doing what’s right and still wanting to have a bit of something during the day. Of course, I blame myself for the times when I’m weak, and don’t praise myself for the times I’m good because I’m only partially good; I really need to work out also.
Still, I will talk to other diabetics about how to try to be better because when all is said and done, at least I know what I have to do to keep my numbers in line, and I find there’s a lot of diabetics, even people who’ve been diagnosed for 5 years, who’ve never received any nutritional guidance whatsoever. Compared to those people, I’m a good diabetic, but what kind of standard is that?
I actually dislike the “good” and “bad” qualifiers, and make a conscious effort to not use those words with “diabetic” most of the time. Sometimes I say it out of habit though. I really think all of us are doing the best we can within our individual circumstances, which as we know, can vary from one moment to the next. While I wish I had rephrased that Facebook question, it generated a lot of interesting comments though.
I’ve been preoccupied lately, so only just realized the shout-out here. Much thanks