I wanted to write a declaration of independence for diabetics in a world or multiple injections, constant blood sugar monitoring, and the chronic annoyance of the insulin pump if you’re lucky enough to get your insurance company to pay for it.
Instead, I’ve got this:
When I was a kid, I was really fond of my grandmother Jess, who didn’t know a thing about my diabetes. When we were visiting a friend of hers, her eighty-year-old friend passed around a bowl of candies, a socially acceptable thing to do.
I expect most diabetics that I know know what came next.
Jess, my beloved grandmother, announced to the room at large, “David can’t eat that. He’s diabetic!”
And again, I expect most diabetics that I know know what came next:
The next thing she said was, “Oh, that’s de-lic–ious!”
My grandmother was not setting out to be cruel. Take my word for it.–she was not that way at all. And out of respect for her in front of her friend who I barely knew, I kept my mouth shut. I was a good diabetic.
But I swore under my breath, without even knowing the words at the time, that I would enjoy my cheesecake and my beer. That I was a diabetic by genetic malfunction, not by choice. That they, whoever they were, made me take insulin, but they did not make me into a monk.
And so here we are.
This is a site for us and about us without the platitudes of the ADA or the JDResearch(yeah right) Foundation. They have been telling me that a cure is just around the corner and asking for donations since I was seven.That was a lot easier to believe back then: I was seven. I’m 41 now. Screw ‘em. Unfortunately,there’s a whole bunch of seven and six and three year-olds that have come along with well-meaning parents since then.
I want your help. The testicle boys have Lance Armstrong and yellow rubber bands. What do diabetics have? A bike-a-thon and a bunch of do-good old dowagers telling us not to eat that, no matter how many grams of carbs it contains and no matter how much we know about managing our lives. And really, do you know how many grams that contains? And is that normal? And who told you it was?
I say have a double serving. Are you with me?