Diabetic

Stereotypes

     When you have diabetes, people tend to have all of these ideas in their heads about what diabetes is before they even know. So in this chapter, you'll learn about all of the fabulous stereotypes about diabetes, and what I've heard about them.

  All diabetics are old/fat

     No, no, no, that's type two. Type two diabetes is when you get either: 1) so overweight that your fat crushes your pancreas. 2) so old that it just shuts down like your organs do when you get old. What I have is type one diabetes. Which is genetics. Not being fat. And one thing that makes me laugh is when ignorant people who think they know everything ask me about my diabetes. They have no clue what diabetes is, they just know there's two types, so they go, "Oh, you have diabetes? Type one or type two?" And I just look at them like, "Do I look that fat to you?" I know I am not going to be winning any modeling contests anytime soon, but I am not obese. Or old. I'm only 14! I'm practically a baby! Sorry, stereotypes are the one thing about diabetes that ticks me off. That's why I started with it first.

   You can not eat anything

     I don't know about you, but I have a giant sweet tooth. Most of the time people are asking me, "Are you sure you have diabetes?" And I've just learned to laugh, because the people asking are my friends that know what diabetes is. But ignorant people will be ignorant people. I mean, I don't hate people that don't know what something is, we aren't all super geniuses, but I do not care for the people who don't know something, but pretend to know it anyways.

     Whenever I was little and they would give out treats in class, like cupcakes for someones birthday (you know, the olden times when they allowed us to share food in school), there was this one girl who was in charge of handing it out. And this girl would skip me on purpose! She would walk down the isle  saying, "One for Lexi, one for Ben, One for....... One for Ellie" And I'd be sitting there thinking, "Hello? I like cupcakes. Can I have one? No? Of course not." And me being the shy kid, I wouldn't speak up, and I would never get a cupcake. *sniff* *sniff* oh well, life goes on.

     Then whenever the teacher would pass a treat out, they would stop at me, "Now, Cassidy" (cause that's my name) "are you sure you can have this?"

     "Yes ma'm!"

     "Have you taken your sugar?"

     "Yes."

     "Do you need to go to the nurse to get your shot?"

     "No ma'm, I have all of my stuff right here!"

     "Hm, why don't you go to the nurse and have her call your mom to see if you can have this."

     "I.... I don't need to ma'm. I've got all my stuff right here."

     "Don't talk back, Cassidy, now go to the nurse."

     "....." And everyone would watch as I had to leave the classroom to go to the nurse for a pointless reason. That happened about every other week. It got to the point where the nurse just had me keep a note from my mom in my kit saying, "Cassidy is allowed to eat whatever snacks are brought into class."

   Diabetes is Contagious

     This is a big one. I met my first friend with this one. When I was diagnosed, I was living in Houston. But we couldn't get any health insurance there, so we had to move to Central Texas to a town called Copperas Cove, and I've lived there ever since. When we first moved to Cove and I was newely diagnosed, another family moved to town from the Military. My mom became friends with their mom, and she so happened to find out they had a daughter with the same age as me. So, my mom being the social creature she is, set up a play date with her daughter.