Those darn needles

Because I have diabetes and do not have an insulin pump, I have to take injections. I take them before every meal, and also once at night before I go to bed. I've been doing this since I was a young child (well, except that my mother did them for me when I was very young) and to me, it's just not a big deal.

I generally don't go around flaunting my needles. I don't wave my hands in the air and say, "Look at me, I have a needle!" or "Watch me do my shot!" I don't hide it, either. I don't feel the need to go sneaking off to the bathroom to do my shot away from other people, unless of course I need to actually remove an item of clothing in order to do the shot. All of my friends know I have diabetes, and none of them have a problem with my needles.

The rare times I'm with new people, I'll try to remember to say something like, "Excuse me, does anyone here have a problem with needles? I have to do an insulin injection and I don't want to bother anyone." The last time this happened, I was at a political fundraising barbecue, and it turned out that of the people I was with, almost all of them were either nurses or other health care workers, and the one who wasn't had just come from a round of cancer treatment that she said had subjected her to plenty of needles.

Generally, when I'm out in public, I'll discreetly take my insulin pen from my purse, dial up my dose and then raise my shirt a tiny bit and stick the needle into my abdomen. Sometimes I'll roll up a sleeve and do an injection in my arm. I've had people ask me, "But what if someone else in the restaurant is afraid of needles and they see you doing your shot?" I figure that most people are going to be paying attention to their own meals and their own companions, not watching to see what the blonde woman at the next table is doing.

Shots are somethig that I need to do for my own health, something I do to literally stay alive. What if I had a fear of dogs? Should I demand that no one can bring a service dog into a restaurant where I'm eating? No, because people who have service dogs have them because they need them.

One day a couple of years ago I was eating supper in a Chinese restaurant. As I usually do, I pulled out my insulin pen and did my injection. Then I got up to go get my meal from the buffet. Someone approached me and said, "Excuse me, I just wanted to thank you." "Thank me for what?" I asked. "Thank you for being brave enough to do your insulin shot in public." "Er, you're welcome, but I don't see what's so brave about it."

Turns out this fellow had once had someone yell at him in the middle of a crowded restaurant because he had done an insulin shot in public. After that he had felt ashamed of doing his injections in public and would go do them in the bathroom. He said that seeing me do my shot made him feel better about doing his, and maybe he'd go back to doing them in public after all.