I’m sorry, but who’s the one actually dealing with this?

So, I’m learning that blogging is like diabetes—you could have the best laid plans for future endeavors [in diabetes, this is your next meal, how much insulin to take, etc.; in blogging, the best laid plans for what your next post is going to be, what you’ll discuss etc.] but as many of us know, of course it just doesn’t work that way.

I wanted to take a moment today to be sure that I touched on what I’ll call an “internet-event” that is taking up a lot of  time and space in many diabetes posts/tweets [like this one and this one] in my sphere this week. Obviously, I don’t want to just rehash everything else that has been said, but rather give my college diabetic-celiac view on the following:

Today, a columnist for the Washington Post, called Miss Manners, responded to a Type 1 Diabetic’s question about taking shots and testing blood sugars in public. Take a moment to read the third letter/response in this article, and then hear me out here.

If I ever gave more than a two second, fleeting thought to when and where I managed my diabetes, I would never be able to exist in the college world. In a split second, I’m running from an 8-5 day of class with one hour of break, by foot between distant buildings, then off to two meetings [now gluten free breakfast, lunch, and dinner in tow since 7:30am] and finally home for some homework and much needed feet-up time.

So, Miss Manners, I ask you, how would you go about advising me, a college girl, on caring for my 240 blood sugar my continuous glucose monitor is alerting me of in the middle of my 10 am physics lecture on the current and resistance of a multi-bulb circuit? Oh, should I take a moment to excuse myself so I can find a tiny bathroom stall, balance my insulin pouch on my knee, put the syringe cap in my mouth, find a corner of skin, jab myself, and proceed to return to lecture, left behind at the last light bulb?

I think we all agree here—there’s really no reason for a non-diabetic to begin commenting on how we’ve learned to *seemingly* flawlessly manage the moment-to-moment swings of a day in the life. What Miss Manners should have done is thanked the man for his concern about others feelings, and advise him to either a) do what makes his life just a little less stressful or b) recognized that she, in fact, does not have authority to discuss the topic and forward him to blogs like mine, and many others, where we’d speak from true experience.

To the man who wrote in, the next time you worry about your testing or shots in public, or if someone gives you a problem, I hope you manage it like I do: look him/her straight in the eye and say “Who’s dealing with this every waking moment, you or me?”

 

Take it easy, but take it.

 

Brianna