Monday, February 11, 2013

The Advantage

See, some people see having diabetes as a disadvantage. How many times have you been told, you can't eat something because you have diabetes or that your life must suck having to count carbs and take needles. How many people have told you that they could never do what you do? When you so badly want to reply with, "yeah needles are worse than death for sure..." All the time as diabetics we are told what we can and cannot do when in reality we are doing amazing things each and every single day and the biggest one is keeping ourselves alive.

Diabetes can give us some advantages that we apply to life that those living without diabetes don't have.  I mean, there is other ways to get this bonus level filled with life advantages, but speaking from the diabetes experience here are a few things you learned as a diabetic that you can apply to life beyond diabetes.

1. No pockets? No problem.    Today at Yoga the instructor was mad because the clip was missing from her microphone's battery pack.  She was frustrated because she was wearing yoga pants that don't have a pocket and didn't know where to put the pack. The whole time I couldn't resist but feel superior as if I knew all the great spots to put a battery pack.  What she saw as a challenge, I saw as an every day life choice.. "where shall I put my pump today?"

2.  You know not to take life for granted.  I usually say this in most of my motivational speeches. You always hear about the terminally ill cancer patient running a marathon, or the man with prosthetic legs winning the race.  What is it about people being diagnosed with something sometimes life threatening that gives them the drive to live life to the fullest?  I don't know but I feel like a lot of people living with type one diabetes feel this too. We know how fragile our health can be and we grab life by the horns and get things done.

3. You're super aware of carbs.  Maybe hardcore dieters will know this just as well. But think about diabetes and our relation to food around us.  We are like the leaders of carb counting. We know what how many carbs we are eating, we know how many carbs our friends are eating and despite being bad at math we have calculated how much insulin we need.   Diabetics know food, so don't even try and tell us that there is no carbs in milk.

4. If we've had diabetes for awhile, we know how hospital run.  We are so familiar with the hospital that we don't even smell it when we walk in anymore.  Plus, if you're like me and think insulin smells like a hospital, you are comforted by the smell knowing that is the scent of life.  We know the process of checking into E.R's or doctor's offices... knowing to use key words like I AM DIABETIC to cut lines...

5. We always have something to talk about. Leave us in a room at a retirement home, and we are bound to find a friend. Even though though type one and type two diabetes is different, we do share things in common. Even a nine year old could talk about diabetes to a ninety year old.  So, never worry if your Grandmother corners your diabetic boyfriend, chances are they will bond.


Kayla

1 comment:

  1. I have never ever counted carbohydrates. I don't know how many carbohydrates are in any food item. I don't know how many I eat or any other person eats. I don't use carbohydrates to figure out how much insulin I take. I do it the way I sort of learned back in 1969. It has worked so well for me that I have no complications.

    I have only been in the hospital due to my having juvenile onset ONE TIME and that was when I was diagnosed in 1965. So I can smell the hospital smell and I don't like it. I do not notice an odor to my insulin, but that may be because I use a vial and syringe and not a pump so it rarely comes out.

    People who say diabetics, either juvenile onset (type 1) or type 2's cannot eat certain things, are in the mindset of the 1960's-1980's. Then diabetics were told they couldn't eat things with sugar, which turn into carbohydrates most quickly.

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