How do people react to your illness?

[Mary Kay]

Mine, Diabetes is pretty easy, most people know what it is..sort of.
I get:

"Did you eat a lot of sugar as a kid"

Isn't that really called "sugar diabetes".

I had a nurse, for pete's sake, ask me what illnesses I had and I told her Diabetes, she said "do you take insulin?" I replied no and she said "well then you don't have diabetes, now do you!"

I have been told it's my fault for eating sugar and drinking. What they thought drinking had to do with it I will never know. maybe they had it confused with my liver. (which is just fine, thank you..lol)

One Korean Dr, told me to eat fish, soup and to drink water, Lose weight. That was when my blood sugar was at 800. No meds.

So what kind of stupidity do you have to deal with?

[bigeyes]

'You don't look sick.'

'I think you're faking. You just want to be sick.'

[Christina]

MaryKay,

My husband has diabetes as well. He has to participate in a lot of working lunch meetings. More often then not they'll bring in pizza. He manages to scrape off the cheese and call it a lunch until he can grab a salad if anything later. Then, how many carbs in the dressing? How much sugar? He ordered a burger the other night and the server was miffed that he wouldn't eat the roll. Many meals eating out servers will give him a hard time for being the only one to skip desert. We keep it light hearted but I know it hurts.

Was your blood sugar at 800 while eating Dr. Korean's diet or prior to it?

I've got GAD (General Anxiety Disorder) but I'm too scared to talk about it right now. (kidding) I've got a few stories to add, just need to give it some more thought.

I like your idea for this thread and will enjoy keeping an eye on it.

[Walrus]

Usually unwanted sympathy, which is why I hardly ever tell anyone... Most of my friends know about my spinal issues (it's hard to miss, since I walk around like an old man most of the time). Very few know about the hemochromatosis. Strange as it may sound... with all the stuff I have going on, I don't consider my diabetes to be one of my more serious issues. It impacts me the least. Maybe only a few know about my depression and anxiety issues. I can fake happiness and joviality pretty good.

[Christina]

'You don't look sick.'

'I think you're faking. You just want to be sick.'

That's so true bigeyes. I try to keep my anxiety hidden. A catch 22 for me I suppose.

[Kimpetuous]

You have hit a nerve MK!

A few years ago I was diagnosed with Crohn's disease (misdiagnosis BTW ), and everytime I told someone ( I worked in a salon) about it, they would tell me the worst story they had ever heard about Crohn's, usually ending in death. I stopped telling after about a week.

And the worst was when I had my daughter. She was a micro preemie, born 14 weeks early. Besides the fact that it was the single most traumatic event of my life, people felt the need to say the most insensitive things possible. Starting with the doctor who said to me as I was standing at her incubator crying because she had a severe infection from her PIC line (she was a week old and well under 3lbs) "is this your first baby?" Implying that I was overreacting and I said "no, but I'd like to keep this one too." She was in the hospital for 87 days and is now 3 y.o. and the perfect picture of health Oh yeah, then there was the girl at work who said, "at least with having her early, you didn't get so fat."

I know that people mean well, but really that excuse wears thin with me. People should know better.

A couple things I have learned in my 40 years

1. NEVER EVER ask someone if they are pregnant unless you absolultely know for sure that they are.

2. When people experience a tragedy or a trauma that you have not experienced yourself, its best to just express your support and not try to guess what they are going through and add your own commentary.

Wow...obviously I am not over some of this stuff....

[Kimpetuous]

and don't even get me started with Anxiety. My sister has Generalized Anxiety Disorder too, and the ignorance surrounding that is unreal. I truly feel for people with these types of condtions.

You know how it goes, she just needs to pull her self up by her bootstraps. She is just not trying hard enough. She needs to stop wallowing.

People are clueless. My sister is a smart, beautiful, funny girl and she has suffered much.

Here try this pill, oh that makes you more anxious?? then try this one.....

I guess I got started anyway.

[mamu]

When I told my brothers and sisters about my son being diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia, one of my brothers said "oh, he's just pulling your leg, he can act normal if he wants to."

[Mary Kay]

Christina, I was at 700 Blood reading before Dr. Dimwit, 800 with him and 1000 by the time I left!
He called my new Dr. and told her I refused to follow orders. From what the nurse told me, my Dr. told him he needs to be investigated.
Sorry about your husband, it must be very hard on him.

Bigeyes, You don't look sick..just limp a lot and the boneheads will lay off!

Unwanted sympathy, Walrus? Who ever wants to be in a position that sympathy is needed! But sometimes that's all people have to give.

Kimpetuous, I heard that! I love all the diabetic stories about "my mom lost her legs", "My uncle can't see"..so cheery and uplifting! NOT
I would just like to kick people sometimes.

[Kate51]

This is maybe beside the points, here, but I have a stepdaughter I used to try to get her to laugh about things more, because I suspect she loves to play on our Grandaughter's shunt...Amy is now 20 1/2, but we nearly lost her many times in her younger years, she had replacement shunts (before birth on she was diagnosed with encephaly) 13 times before they did an expansion surgery...her cranium was too small to allow her ventricles room to open with fluid. From then on she's been A-1!
But our daughter constantly refering to and almost bragging about Amys' problems still. So when you say, walrus, that unwanted sympathy bothers you, that makes much more sense to me than to absolutely be looking for sympathy all the time. Seems more natural. You are dealing with things much worse, hate to say this, but our Amy is totally normal with the shunt! Not abnormal because of it. Amy's gotten away with a lot of misbehavin' because of her Mom's strange behavior. I now say nothing, had to let it go. I'd like to introduce all of you guys to Kathy!