What Diabetes Is

rainbow-goddess:

Ever since the unicorn frappucino was released, I’ve seen an uptick in “diabeetus” jokes. I’ve also seen people posting pictures of candy and cake and saying “Look at my diabeetus ha ha ha,” as if diabetes is some type of joke.

Diabetes is not a frappucino. There is no such thing as “diabetes on a plate” or “diabetes in a cup.” Let me tell you what diabetes actually is.

Diabetes is a small child dying of ketoacidosis because the doctor in the ER thought that child had the flu.

Diabetes is parents who can’t sleep through the night because they have to get up and check their child’s blood sugar during the night to make sure their child hasn’t gone into insulin shock or diabetic coma.

Diabetes is waking up in the middle of the floor covered in bruises and rug burn because you fell asleep after taking insulin but before eating the food that you took the insulin for, and your blood sugar crashed, causing you to fall off the couch and have a seizure.

Diabetes is having to decide whether there is enough insulin to last until you get paid or whether you will skip a meal or two so that you can take less insulin and save money on groceries.

Diabetes is not getting enough sleep because your blood sugar was too high, meaning that you got out of bed to go to the bathroom multiple times, or too low, meaning that you got out of bed to treat the low and then stayed awake to be sure it didn’t go low again.

Diabetes is going to a trendy eating place and discovering they don’t serve diet drinks because “aspartame is poison” and having them tell you to drink orange juice instead.

Diabetes is finding out that your kidneys or eyesight or digestive system or circulation is failing after you’ve lived with the disease for decades.

Diabetes is having people say “So lose weight and it will go away” or “Your kid got that because you fed them too much sugar”.

Diabetes is living every day with a disease that you know could shorten your lifespan while politicians blame people who have your disease for costing the health care system money, as if it’s your fault your immune system decided to attack you.