Being a kid with diabetes

When I was diagnosed with diabetes, things were a bit different from how they are today. There were no insulin pumps, no insulin pens (in fact, I believe disposable syringes had only recently become common) and no blood glucose meters. No one ever talked about counting carbohydrates, and all you ever heard about diabetes was "you can't eat sugar." No one ever dreamed of adjusting insulin to fit what you were eating. Instead, you adjusted what you ate to fit your insulin, and you took the exact same insulin dosage every day.

I was the only diabetic kid in my school. I'm pretty sure this made the teachers nervous. I once had to be sent home from school because one of the other kids stole my morning snack, which I needed to compensate for my breakfast-time insulin peaking at around 10:00 in the morning.

What I really hated was classroom parties. It seemed like we had those fairly often -- Christmas, Easter, Halloween, last day of school before summer holiday, other kids's birthdays. These parties always included lots of cake, or cookies, or candy, or all three. And I couldn't eat any of these things. So I was excluded. I would sit in my seat and try not to cry.

I spoke to a young diabetic woman yesterday who told me the story of one such school experience she had. She is 20 years younger than I am, but she went through the same kinds of things I went through. One time her grade one teacher handed out chocolates to all the kids for a "treat," and then gave my diabetic friend the empty chocolate box for her "treat." Can you imagine? "Here, everyone else can have chocolate, and YOU can have the empty box!"

Why couldn't the teacher have provided some sugar-free chocolate, since she knew she had a diabetic student? Or how about not giving kids candy at all, but maybe some stickers or something like that -- much healthier, doesn't single out the diabetic kid, and avoids the risk that another student or students might have food allergies.