Wednesday, May 28, 2014

That's Not a Surgery...

Every now and then you run into people that have no clue about diabetes, or worse, think they have a clue, but don't.  I noticed that a lot of people can mad at these people (on Facebook groups etc.) but in reality, I think we need to just shrug it off, and think at least they tried.

The other day I went for a massage.  Of course on the little information page I had to disclose that I had type 1 diabetes. I didn't bother writing insulin pump, mainly because I was half skimming the paper and half thinking, 'why does it matter?'  Anyways, before I got to undress and lay down, she did an assessment of me. She quickly noticed that I was wearing a pump and asked if that was what it was.  

I said, 'Yes, I'm surprised you know what it is!"  Because usually people stare at it in awe of what kind of iPod or pager or...who knows what it is.

After that she assessed my hips and asked if I carry children all day... which is irrelevant to the story but I found that interested, because I don't.

Anyways, she continued down the paper and all I could think of was, "Let's Get This Started!"

 She added one last question, "Have you had any other surgeries besides that one..."

"What one?"

"The one for your insulin pump..."

"That's not a surgery."

"Oh, it's not the one that is a surgery. Because my friend has the one that's a surgery.."

"Umm...."

Then I just went along with it because I didn't really know what we were talking about now and I didn't really want to go into a conversation that I didn't think there was an insulin pump that required surgery...and to be honest I wanted a massage.

I guess there is a time and place for education and there it just didn't seem relevant. I figured she would go to her friend and tell her she had a client with a pump and say something along the lines of, "She didn't need surgery! Maybe you should look into that!" Then her friend could tell her she also never needed surgery...



No comments:

Post a Comment