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Thursday 16 January 2014

The Upside to Diabetes

I don't have anything deep and meaningful to say. Feeling light-hearted.

So today we're lumbering off down the road less traveled and listing (yes, a list, again) potential good side effects to come from having diabetes. Yes, I know these don't make up for having diabetes. Its just fun to imagine the super-powers it can give you.

Self-Imposed Compulsory Disclaimer: I'm not suggesting you take any of these potential good side effects of diabetes as gospel. Some of them may be illegal. I'm not sure.
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- You know that rule in Event (and other) Cinemas, were they don't like you to bring in food from other places? Totally doesn't apply to a diabetic. Go to Woolies, buy your real and completely not-watered down coke for $30000 less and walk right in. They can't take hypo treatment off a diabetic.
  I actually use this one all the time to bring lollies in because the lollies available are really not nom.

- Parking fine? You can't legally move your car if you're below 5 (so long as you take insulin or oral hypoglycaemic agents). You just had a reaaaallllly long hypo. That lasted 4 hours. Whilst you were shopping in Myer. Yup.

- Once upon a time I forgot to vote. I got a fine. But its all good because I had a log book full of hypo numbers to photocopy and send in. Fine wiped. All cheer.

- Leaving work early to go to your endo appointment. Which may or may not happen every Friday afternoon, enabling you to beat the coast traffic. Arriving at the Coast early win.

- Occasionally I struggle to climb up to the top of the small mountain of cups, plates, knifes and cheese graters in my kitchen and shudder as I submerge my fingers into scalding hot water to wash them all up. But I can always count on a mid-wash up hypo to stay my hand as I get into the gritty pots and pans. Advantage? I got to do all the easy to clean cups & plates, and my partner has to do all the hard stuff like pans and grills, despite the fact that he cooked with them.

- Vacuuming = hypo. Therefore the vacuuming is no longer on my job list ever again.

- Skipping queues at the pathology collection place and never having to do a fasting blood test ever again. Gotta be above 5 to drive, no breakfast = not above 5 = never making it to the pathology place.

- Basically anywhere that you aren't supposed to eat, diabetics can. People are ignorant to diabetes, both fortunately and unfortunately, and many still labor under the delusion that we must eat at specific times and stick to absolute strict routines or we die. Instantly, on the spot in front of them. I'm one of those people who snacks a lot...small amounts of food over the course of the day, and hate going to things where I can't eat. Not a problem anymore because I just say I *have* to eat and viola: stuffing face with chocolate whilst everyone else around you mutters crankily in time to their hunger-starved growling stomachs.

- Pretty cases & skins for pumps/meters.

- Fussy eater? So am I. "I have diabetes, I can't eat that". This includes mushy peas. They have carbs, right?

- On occassion I get to pretend to be a doctor. That thing on my hip is totally a pager. It's nice to play dress-ups and pretend-games when you're an adult, because people don't realise that that's what you're doing, and will treat you all respectable-like when they think you can cure their disease. Also doctors get to the start of the line, because they have to go save lives. That said, hypos also get you to the start of the line, because otherwise you die. Instantly, on the spot in front of people.

- One day when I've had too many annoying questions about my pump, I'm going to tell somebody that my pump is a new police tracking device and I was just let out of jail. I'm really looking forward to this day.

- The world makes more sense when everyone and everything in it is diabetic. Completely mundane things all of a sudden have explanations. I think we already covered how JK basically chronicles diabetes in Harry Potter. Think about strange things that have happened. Add diabetes. It clicks into place.

- Diabetes gives me bigger boobs. How? Add pump to bra. Viola. Almost-sortof-pretend cleavage. And if I want to dress up as a dude? Pump in pants. Bulge happening down there. The funny thing is, this happened accidentally once when I was using a flesh-coloured pump thigh belt that I had pulled up too high. Peeked out under my dress. Kept getting the weirdest stares in the bank.

- Legally carrying sharp objects. Spare lancing device lancets can be used for opening things when no scissors are around.

- Laughs.

- Stories. What stories have you collected since D that are unique and could only happen to a diabetic?


Biggest Super-power? THE DOC BABY!!! I never felt community until Morty decided that I was the one from the prophecy, tried to kill me and gave me pump-shaped scars on my forehead...I mean stomach.














3 comments:

  1. I have clicked on your blog from Diabetes Qld. How ironical, working as a receptionist for an Endocrinologist and being diagnosed with Type 1. Reminds me of my diagnosis, contracted to improve the sugar quality at the local sugar mill, only to find out within two months that I had Diabetes which progressed quickly to Brittle Type 1. In a former life I was a Sugar Chemist. You have to laugh or you would go mad. I have read some of your posts and you have a good sense of humor, I feel a must for people with Type 1. You may know my Endo, Tony Russell works out of PA hospital Diabetes Private Practice Clinic Burke St. A great guy, a top Endo with a sense of humor.
    All the Best with THE BEAST - DT1,
    Paul.

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    1. Hi Paul,

      Thanks for stopping by. It's funny the way people are diagnosed. I can't imagine all the silly things people would have said to you given your work in the sugar industry.

      Tony's the Director of the Department of Diabetes & Endocrinology, by memory. I've not met him myself but the Endo I work for works at PA as well and speaks about him sometimes in letters, etc. Its good to have endo's with humour as well, I agree. Makes it easier to live with.

      -Ash

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  2. These are fab- definitely an uplift for me after a shocking week of devil sugars! :)

    ReplyDelete