Diabetes

     This topic has such a detrimental existence in my life. I hate diabetes and have had to deal with it and its effects almost my entire life. It's been a constant struggle to maintain a decent A1C level and I have truly tried to maintain numbers that my endocrinologist would be proud of. 

    In my youth, I had people treat me as if I was fragile and couldn't compete with my peers. I made the youth basketball team only to be dropped from the roster once they found out I had diabetes. It's different today. I remember receiving labels that caused scrutiny from my trusted teachers. They would pick apart everything I consumed at lunch. The nasty comments and frowns was enough to make me avoid eating anything while at school. I can distinctly recall a time that I had sugar free water flavoring in a bottled water and the teacher took it because she said... "you don't need all that sugar hitting you at once." I guess she felt like an idiot when my mother made the trip to town to have a conversation with her. The same teacher also picked through my lunch that mom had packed for me each day. She would make snide comments about mom's yogurt choices. Honestly, we didn't take handouts and mom wouldn't sign me up for free lunch. What she packed me each day, when we had extra, was it. Sometimes there was extra money for lunch at school, but most of the time I would just fast through the day, which resulted in low readings. On several occasions I passed out entirely because I refused to eat.  

    I will forever be grateful for the teachers who would just check in rather than demand me to check my sugar. One Civic's teacher would make me check it each morning as I walked through the door. She would be super annoyed if it was over 130. Literally lady I just ate and road a bus straight to school. Chill out. She was yet another teacher who would stop by my lunch table to take note of what I was consuming. I still cringe every time I see her in public. She still makes a snarly face at me and on purpose I make a point to speak to her just to make her acknowledge that I'm a person. She lost her job that school year for other reasons, but she shouldn't have ever worked with kids. 

     I shared this with you guys to let you know how your youth feels when you constantly make everything about their diabetes. I just remember feeling like I couldn't escape and that the pressure from some of my teachers and it was all  ridiculous. They didn't even know that my A1C was great and that I was going to a specialist. I was glad to have a parent who would intervene when necessary, but she shouldn't have had to. 

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