Actually, don't tell me about it.
I understand that pretty much everyone in college is stressed
about one thing or another, but are you really trying to complain to me about
being stressed? Sure, you might have two papers due, an exam, and multiple
extracurricular activities that you have to worry about, but you know what? I
do too. However, unlike you, I also have a fun little gem called type one
diabetes to deal with on top of everything else, so shut up.
This tends to be a conversation I have in my head multiple times a
week when people decide that I'm the one they should complain to about being
overly stressed. I'm not one to complain too much, especially about my
diabetes, so I guess that's why people don't realize how much of a toll it
takes on me every day. There is not a single aspect about my life that doesn't
make me worry about my blood sugars. Something as simple as walking to class
scares me because I worry about going low during class, having to pull out my
tube of glucose tablets and try to discretely eat them while hiding any and all
symptoms from my professor and classmates. Also, there is nothing more stressful
than worrying about having the attention drawn to you because of your diabetes,
like your pump going off in class or someone asking why you have a pager in your
pocket while standing in a large group of people that probably contains a
number attractive guys because why not make it as awkward as possible!? By the
way, why would anyone even think a pump is a pager? It's 2014, in case anyone
was wondering...
Anyways, type one diabetes is a very stressful thing to deal with
in the first place, but it's even worse when you're already stressed about
every other non-diabetic related aspect of your life. In the first place,
stress can cause blood sugars to be high in general anyways; and, if you're
anything like me when you're stressed, you tend to pretend that type one
diabetes doesn't exist and the world is all rainbows and unicorns besides that
one paper, project, or exam that 100% of your brain is concentrating on. This
is obviously a problem. I've had type one diabetes long enough to know that it
is like a full time job. A full time job that you hate and doesn't pay you
enough, or in this case, at all. What I’m trying to say is that it's really
dangerous to just ignore the fact that your pancreas decided to take a
permanent vacation and not leave you any provisions of insulin for while it was
gone. Sure, it sucks, but if you want to keep the function in your other
internal organs, eyes, and nerve endings, you should probably just take your
insulin.
I know what you're all thinking right now because I'm thinking the
exact same thing, "It's a lot easier said than done, Miss Know it
All." Trust me, I know. I should probably be the last person you want to
take advice from about remembering to bolus, but that's exactly why you should
listen to me. I understand how hard it is. You're trying to juggle everything
else in your life, just like everyone else who doesn't have type one diabetes,
but we somehow got the hostile immune systems that decided to take its anger
out on our pancreases. It's stressful. About the only thing simple about the
life of a type one diabetic is that our lives are simply stressful.
Reverting back to my rant at the beginning of this post, if you
have people in your life who complain to you about how stressed they are, try
not to overreact and slap them across the face like I tend to want to do. They
don't understand, and probably never will, how much of a toll type one diabetes
takes on someone's everyday life. Personally, thinking back to before I was
diagnosed, I could have never imagined my life with diabetes. Try to hear them
out when they start complaining to you, and in the back of your mind just keep
thinking, "I'm just as stressed as you, but I'm going to get everything
done and be a dia-bad-ass while doing so!"
