dia◍bad◍ass
/diäbäd’as/a person living with diabetes who doesn’t let it stop them from doing anything they want to do in life.
The ignorance of some people. Oh my god. I genuinely thought that in this day and age people would have more compassion… but no.
I just finished a test. Actually I didn’t quite finish it, shortly into it my blood sugar dropped and I had to stop the test to get it back up. My blood sugar decided to be even more difficult and take its time getting back up, so in the meantime I just got more sick and felt like absolute shit. I made the decision to stop my test and send a message to my professor, telling him my situation and asking him to completely void my test and retake it another day. Which keep in mind, is fully in my right and part of my accommodations. Him allowing me wasn't the issue at all, and really I knew that wouldn't be. But anyway, he finally responded to me, but instead of a simple ‘yes that's fine! take care of yourself!” he accuses me of not preparing for the test and not knowing the material at hand. As if I hadn't spent hours upon hours studying the days leading up to the test.
I’ve encountered a lot of ignorance when it comes to diabetes, you kinda get used to it, But for some reason this set me off. After sending a mildly passive-aggressive response I left the zoom immediately. I don’t know why this got to me so much, I guess I assumed adults were more educated on the subject. It’s unfortunate how widely miss understood type-1 diabetes is, but if I’m being fair I had no idea what it was until I had it.
Anyways, I’m a newbie to diabetes, I haven't even been diagnosed for a year. In fact, my diaversary is coming up in a couple of weeks, but thats besides the point. Even though I’ve only struggled with this disease a fraction of what most other teens with T1Ds have, it is still such a big part of me. It’s literally a personality trait at this point, I don’t shut the fuck up about it. But when something so important is as widely miss understood as it is, I find it important to educate those around me.
It’s a bitch of a disease. There’s so much that I just can't put into words because no matter how I try and explain it or what words I use, a non-diabetic will just never understand.
I recently moved to college, it's been what, maybe a month and a half now. College is great, kinda… lowkey still deciding. But diabetes at college is a whole different ballgame, so many environmental changes that one wouldn’t even think of affecting a person's blood sugar, but shit, just about everything does I've learned.
I'm still figuring out how this disease works, it's weird. One week my blood sugar decides to be high and I feel like death, the next week I go low every hour, and just walking out of my building sends me into hypoglycemia (a condition in which one's blood sugar goes below normal). It’s a fucking toll, but it’s life.
Ok, this will be the last time I bitch in this post I swear, but I've been here 6 weeks and I haven't met one other god damn diabetic. Which is actually hard for me considering in high school I had a couple friends that were also T1D that acted as my support group.
Yes diabetes is rough as fuck, and I could literally go on and on about it. But truth is, it’s really is a blessing in disguise. That might be manic me talking but really it is. Ok, wait I’ve sat here for a couple minutes questioning If I truly meant that and I take it back, fuck this disease.
It’s livable, it just takes a couple more steps in life, and by a couple, I mean a hell of a lot more. It builds character I guess. I think that’s all it offers on the pros side besides being allowed to bring my own candy into the movie theater without trying to hide it.
Despite me bitching and bitching about it, I really do have a good attitude about it most of the time. I don't let it stop me from living my life, and I don't think anyone should. I try to think of it as life, I have no other option, I mean truly I literally have no other fucking option than to deal with it. Which sucks but so do a lot of other things that I don't have, therefore I have to be grateful.
One of my kinda trademarks on social media or more so on TikTok are the phrases “wada” and “staying hydrated”. I’m not gonna explain what that means to avoid getting myself in trouble with college shit but you should be able to guess, if not… you’re just fucking dumb. But “staying hydrated” with diabetes is something that was a learning process. I get a lot of questions asking how I drink “wada” with diabetes and yall it really isn't that hard, you just can't be a dumbass about it. “Wada” lowers blood sugar and carbs raise it, so try and drink drinks that have a balance of both such as “flavored sparkling wada” or “that yeast drink”. I'm really pushing my luck here trying to be creative with these names. But no matter what type of “wada” you are drinking you just have to be smart and constantly check your blood sugar and snack throughout the night.
It's funny because when I go out I always bring granola bars and when I'm at a club or some shit I’ll just leave the wrappers on the bar and my friends will see them and know I'm there because of it.
I used to have a pump, the technology surrounding this disease is fucking insane. My pump would automatically give me insulin every hour, as well as I could plug in how much more insulin I wanted depending on whether I ate or not. I don't use a pump anymore, just temporarily though. I recently switched the type of insulin I'm taking and I just wanted to try going back to manual injections for a bit, but when I was on my pump I absolutely loved it.
Same goes for my Dexcom. I will NEVER not use that hoe. Basically my Dexcom is a small device that has a little wire running under my skin, constantly measuring my blood sugar and sending that info straight to my phone. I can quite literally check my blood sugar at any point in time on my phone and to me that's incredible. Mainly because pricking myself to check my blood is a pain in the ass but it also saves me so much time.
A lot of people are self-conscious about their devices but for some reason I was never self-conscious about mine. Like what are you gonna do, stare at me?? okay like I give a fuck, this sexy body ain’t here for nothin. I actually love showing my devices off, mainly because it helps other diabetics locate me and vise versa. I always love making new diabuddies.
Swimming with diabetes is something I'm still figuring out. It's by far the hardest thing In this whole process of learning, just because it's so inconsistent and random. What I mean by that is my blood sugar likes to be a bitch, sometimes it’s stable and other times I'm sitting out of practice because it goes low. College swimming is even more ticky just because we work out so much that I burn more calories than my blood sugar can keep up with, but it's not a process I expect to figure out anytime soon lol.
Diabetes is sexy as fuckkkkk. I don't care if my pancreas doesn't work, because I get sympathy points and I get to keep my phone on me during tests. But anyways i'm about to pass out from being sleep-deprived so I’m going to call this my first real blog post. Yes I know I posted that Bahamas one but like ew I don't really like it so I’m not counting it.
I really hope you all enjoyed my little take on living with diabetes. Obviouslyyy there is sooo much more than I cant fit in one blog post but I don’t wanna lose y’alls attention, and honestly I'm just too lazy to sit here for hours and explain the ins-and-outs of diabetes for people who are perfectly capable of using google. I'm definitely going to try and post more, I really find this so therapeutic and relaxing so it's definitely something that I plan on sticking with. I appreciate y’all’s support as always and I’ll see y’all soon!
Thank y’all again for taking the time to read this. Make sure to tell your friends about the blog and send it to your grandparents. I love you all and go follow my instagram for more content and updates on new blogs.
