Attitudes

“You Have Very Poor Control.”

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“You have very poor control.”

No mention of how I was feeling after my first couple of weeks living with a demanding chronic illness that would affect me for the rest of my life.

No mention of how my family, friends, peers, work and uni were treating me in the aftermath of my diagnosis.

No mention of how I was handling the insulin injections, finger pricks, food, physical activity, hypos, hypers and stigma of living with diabetes.

After a quick flick through my diabetes logbook charting some less than ideal blood glucose levels, I walked out of my very first endocrinologist appointment eight years ago on the verge of tears. This endo had clearly spent more time with his head buried inside a textbook than he had in the real world, and I was left feeling very little empathy for what I had been going through.

Despite several weeks of learning about diabetes under the wing of a very supportive diabetes educator, it took just one ten minute consult with that endo to undo what I believed was some solid progress in managing my diabetes.

That is exactly the reason why the language we use when talking about diabetes is so damn important to me.

I’m insulted when people think that this issue is about nothing more than political correctness over the phrase ‘diabetic’ or ‘person with diabetes.’ I honestly couldn’t care less which of these words you prefer to use. What I do care about is how your choice of words, sentences, body language and attitudes could impact others.

My diabetes educator could read my face the minute I stepped out into the hallway, and knew that something wasn’t quite right.

I tried to laugh it off. I told her that I hadn’t taken too much of what that endo had said to heart.

But man, those words hurt. They still hurt today.

Being mindful of language is about more than just being polite or trying not to offend someone with your choice of words.

The language we use when talking about diabetes has the power to create reality.

You can also check out my five reasons to be mindful of language when talking about diabetes in my latest column for Diabetes Daily.

And commit Diabetes Australia’s Position Statement on Language to memory!

Accepting My Ordinary

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I absolutely hated the thought of being visibly different to anyone else after my diagnosis. I would sit in the hallway at diabetes clinic, watching the other “diabetic” young adults, and I absolutely hated that I was one of them. For the first couple of years, I definitely tried to hide from my diabetes to a certain degree.

I stubbornly refused to wear my Medic Alert bracelet, despite Mum and Dad’s constant reminders that it might save my life one day, on the principle that it branded me as a “diabetic.”

I would travel as lightly as possible whenever I left the house, without even thinking about the consequences. My diabetes educator once asked me where my jellybeans and meter were. I used to live by the motto that it would never happen to me. And shops were everywhere for backup.

I rarely tested my glucose in public situations, even if I needed to. Oftentimes at uni, I would test with the meter hidden in my bag. Or pack up my things and walk off to the bathroom.

I refused to wear appropriate footwear. I would stubbornly walk around uni in rubber thongs. When my feet were blistering at the end of the day, I was proud that I fitted in with many of the other students on campus.

I wouldn’t talk about diabetes if I didn’t have to. I didn’t lean on the people around me enough for support. I wasn’t confident or enthusiastic about it when it did come up.

Finding peer support and knowledge online, and opening up about my diabetes through this blog has definitely changed my attitude towards diabetes for the better. (Perhaps some age and maturity comes into play here as well…)

Today, my hypo containers accompany me most times I leave the house. Even if they sit in my jacket all night, or stay in the car on a quick trip to the shops, I feel much more comfortable having them on me. My contingency pack is also ready for when I’m away from home for a prolonged period of time.

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I’ve developed a new love for shoes. I’ve been a thongs-and-sandals-in-the-summer kind of guy my whole life, yet now I wear them half as often. While I certainly don’t wear “diabetic” shoes, I do dress more suitably for the occasion. And a good pair of Converse shoes looks good with anything.

Today, my glucose meter sits proudly on my desk at work, within easy reach when I need it. I test in the office that I share with a few other colleagues, and it’s sparked a couple of conversations in particular during recent weeks.

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I’m still tragically hopeless at stringing words together when people ask me if that is a diabetes testing thingy (translation: blood glucose meter), but boy am I so much more confident in addressing it.

I still don’t wear a Medic Alert bracelet most of the time, but that’s purely just because I’m annoyed at the old expanda band sticking to my wrist (something I need to get onto, soon).

I’ve recently began wearing an insulin pump – a very visible sign of my diabetes. When I think about those first few weeks on the insulin pump, I think about how much I talked it through with my family every morning when I woke up – something that I simply wasn’t able to do after I was diagnosed.

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I’ve been watching Diabetes Victoria’s Diabetes Won’t Stop Me campaign for National Diabetes Week, trying to think of something grand to say about how I am not stopped by diabetes.

Accepting that these diabetes intricacies are my ordinary over the past few years, is far more extraordinary than what climbing a bridge will ever be.

That, folks, is how I will not be stopped by diabetes.

(Coincidentally, today is also my one year BridgeClimb-aversary!)