The Cronut of all evil

I have blogged a few times about how ignorant comments made about diabetes or to a diabetic about their condition can make people with the condition feel.

Most things, whilst I can get upset, I can politely discuss with the offending person because I know a very large part of what they have said comes from misconceptions made worse by the very wrong public perception of diabetes.

Then there's The Paramount Coffee Project, who came in with fully loaded bazukas and blew all other ignoranases clean out of the competition. The fact that I am still cranky enough the next day to write this is testament to the anger that pulsed hard through my veins.

I opened up my facebook newsfeed yesterday to see a post from the Paramount Coffee Project being passed around in diabetic circles. They had erred harshly on the side of "how is being this horribly ignorant and rude even possible" with their post. They had created a secret menu item that was only available if you asked specifically for it - prior knowldedge only kinda deal. Which is a great marketing strategy. Unfortunatley their marketing genius obviously used up all his genius on the secret menu idea and had a severe case of brain fart when coming up with the title and marketing catch phrase of this secret item.

They called a ridiculously delish looking cronut topped with affogato and some other fancy thing I can't remember 'Diabetes'. Yes, Diabetes is what they named their dish. The cronut they had pictured was very soft and looked like heaven for your mouth . Diabetes does not look like this. Diabetes looks like fingers covered in red and black pinprick marks. Diabetes looks like an alien insulin pump canula stark white against pink flesh. Diabetes looks like bruises, blood and needle marks. It looks like dark circles under your eyes and worry lines on parents' faces.

There's infinite amounts I can say about how naming a dessert 'Diabetes' is just plain wrong and should never have been suggested or followed through with in the first place. Comments were made about how there is no way they would ever call a dessert 'SIDS surprise' or 'Cancer Cake' (N.B. - I fully understand how serious these are - this is for example only) - because diabetes isn't recognised as being the serious disease that it absolutely is.

After the shock of the name, I read the description, which ended with the phrase 'So come in and ask for diabetes today'. This was the part for me, that made me wish all sorts of evil things on this establishment. NOBODY - I repeat NOBODY would EVER EVER EVER IN A HEARTBEAT ask for diabetes. NOBODY does this 'to themselves' willingly. I don't ask for needles, sleepless nights, hypos and hypers, fingerpricks in the blistering cold or anything else that settled into the spot where my defunct pancreas resides when diabetes wriggled it's way into my life.

Thankfully, the DOC was all over this. I think this post was averaging 3 tirades per minute about the seriousness of what they thought was a 'joke'. People posted links to tribunals to make official complaints, tagged Diabetes Australia and all sorts of fun things to help with the message that this was not even a little bit o.k.

Unfortunately for the establishment, this was all going on whilst the 'creative genius' behind it all slept soundly. The post was removed today and a belated apology issued. I don't know how many phone calls they recieved this morning. I feel sorry for the staff, who might have had to deal with eventuated threats from parents that they would bring their 5 year old with Type 1 in to the store so the workers could explain to him that some cronut he had never eaten was the reason why he has to inject insulin for the rest of his life. For Paramount's employees sake, I hope they left the phone off the hook today.


Power to the DOC (who I can see are still worked up over it this morning based on the posts and jokes being made about Paramount). I hope I never see anything this disgustingly ill-informed again in my life.

Stigmatic

stigma

ˈstɪgmə/

noun

1. 1.

   a mark of disgrace associated with a particular circumstance, quality, or person.

   "the stigma of mental disorder"
2. 
   

Chances are in your life that you have felt stigmatized. Maybe you just like the colour black, so everyone assumes your part of a dark goth vampire cult, and cross the street just in case you want to suck their blood with a quickly applied straw-stabbed-through the neck as they pass. Or maybe your smart, so you never got picked for the sports team, and the lack of being allowed to play is probably why you're not good at sports in the first place.

Diabetes also has a stigma. It's a stigma that can make it very hard to tell people around us that we have the disease, or let on how hard it really is. Before you knew anyone with diabetes, what did you know about the disease? Did you believe the pretty blonde lady on the T.V. spouting that diabetes only happened to fat, ugly people? Did you hear about your neighbors grand-daughter who was just diagnosed with diabetes and wonder how many family-sized packets of M & M's her mother tipped into her throat to cause it? Did you think that we are all lazy and unmotivated or that we don't care enough to take care of ourselves? Did you think that we are sickly and won't be able to hold down a job or have a future because of health concerns? Did you think we DESERVE it? Do you still think these things? 

The stigma of diabetes is real. It can stop people getting jobs and it can ruin relationships. Diabetes stigma can create social exclusions. It can make us feel bad about ourselves and maybe even begin to believe we deserve everything that's happening to us. Stigma can stop us from learning about diabetes enough to take proper care of the disease.

When I was first diagnosed, sitting cross legged on a crisp clean hospital bed, I asked for a pregnancy test. I hoped it was gestational diabetes. Unsurprisingly, the pregnancy test was negative and I did not have some sort of super GDM given my over 30 levels.

After I was told that no, there was no bean growing inside me, I WISHED for Type 1 Diabetes. I don't believe in a god, but I concentrated all my energy on willing my pancreas to be fully, 100% non-insulin productive. I was very much aware that Type 1 Diabetes was the one with needles, and that Type 2 diabetes had potential to be reversed, or at the very least I could diet control or have tablets every day instead of multiple daily shots of insulin straightaway.

Being that I hate needles, the wish to have Type 1 Diabetes is crazy, right? It's not if you're aware of the stigma. I knew about the diabetes stigma - and I did not want the stigma of diabetes, let alone Type 2 Diabetes - or the diabetes percieved to be made of an inability towards any sort of self-control. A Type 1 Diagnosis meant that I could interject that in uncomfortable situations - I could say "I have TYPE ONE Diabetes" or "autoimmune diabetes" and explain that it wasn't my fault. A Type 1 diagnosis meant I could say "Oh no, That's Type 2 Diabetes that get it from poor lifestyle".

Of course I don't feel this way and I never ended up throwing any Type 2 Diabetics under the bus (I hope we're all well aware that Type 2 is much more complex than 'I ate bad'. Genetics, anyone?). I explain the differences between the 2 when asked about my diabetes but never lay blame to anyone with diabetes. And these days I know that the stigma affects Type 1's just as much as Type 2's. I just happened to know that Type 1 was autoimmune beforehand due to a cousin having Type 1, and so I preferred to pick this stigma instead. 

The fact is, I was aware of the stigma even before diagnosis and I knew I didn't want to spend three quarters of my life defending my pancreases right to an early retirement and the shame it might cause me. No one should be made to feel this way. 

So get on board with the Diabetes Stigma Project and support! If you can't do that, then at the very least next time you hear someone saying something about diabetes, blast the bejesus out of them and set them straight damnit! (But don't wish diabetes on them or anyone they love because that's just not fair. Diabetes isn't fair to anyone).