Are you insulted...?????

[DeusXM]

Thanks for all the responses everyone. I've been sharing them with the staff where I work (all of whom get a hard time from this patient when they book in) and will once again have a word with my boss about re-wording our practice reminder letter. Unfortunately I can do nothing about the letter the patient receives from the diabetes eye screening services. Interesting to read everyone's views.

I would say you deserve massive credit for simply asking the question in the first place. While I agree with your 'difficult' patient on the use of language and if asked, I will give you a strong opinion, I don't think I'd be so vociferous unprompted. Life's too short and at the end of it, if you and I are organising an appointment together, it's in my interest to make that process as painless as possible.

 

[curlygirl]

I agree with Deusxm about the inclusion of an 'a' - for me that makes a huge difference. I am not that keen on the word diabetic, not because I struggle to accept that I am or anything of the sort, but I just don't like it. However if you add 'a' in front - as in, she is 'a diabetic', that is when it really bothers me. It is a very small difference to some, but for me it is definitely a difference. One way describes something that I biologically am - diabetic - my pancreas no longer works and therefore I am diabetic, but to use 'a diabetic' puts this as the main thing that I am and I don't like it because I am many things, and if asked to describe myself as a person, having diabetes would be quite a long way down the list. I don't kick up a fuss about it though, nor do I lose sleep over it, but having been asked, that is how I feel about it.

 

[stephknits]

Reminds me of the sort of decisions I made when the girls were going through the dreaded toddler stage. There were some battles worth fighting and there were some that most definitely weren't. as with others I would prefer I have diabetes, rather than am diabetic, but I have so much better things to do with my life... Now where is my knitting 🙂

 

[trophywench]

LOL - I spose because although deep down to my very core i regard my diabetes as an exceedingly important subject - I don't let it interfere with my life as much as i possibly can - so it doesn't matter a jot what you describe me as, especially if it's truthful eg fond of the sound of my own voice, fat, or lazy, brown haired, blind as a bat sans specs, you can say what you like actually - as long as whatever you say is NOT intended to be hurtful to me.

I see no reason to expose the world generally to either of my saggy boobs - but should you happen to be at eg Le Couderc the same time as me - no prob.

 

[Diabeticliberty]

Blimey O'Reilly Jenny you're not a nackky camper are you?

 

[KookyCat]

I don't really care about the word diabetic, not so keen on the "suffer" but to be honest also probably wouldn't make a fuss about it. I would make an almighty fuss if I sniffed an issue in personal interactions though, like when the DSN said "we use these on your feet". What she meant was that some people with diabetes find the compression useful in relieving neuropathic pain. The entire conversation involved the use of the word "your" when talking about diabetes in general. I told her straight, I've got a wonky pancreas, not a different gene sequence, we're not a tribe or a distinct sub species, I am not a "we" I'm a "me". I don't think she got it at all. That said I would never refer to someone as a diabetic or an asthmatic or an epileptic, I would always use "a person with asthma" or a "person with diabetes" etc, because it's just a small aspect of who they are regardless of how important or devastating their condition. I wouldn't be offended if some said you're a diabetic though, unless I thought there were deeper issues at play, and then I'd be constructive in explaining why I would prefer they consider their terminology more carefully.

Language is very important, not long ago we used "confined to a wheelchair" which makes the person the focus of something negative, whereas a wheelchair user is far less emotionally charged. My friend who uses a wheelchair would no more be offended by the term "confined to a wheelchair" than I would "a diabetic", but then we have the luxury of living in a world where defining a person by their disability, condition or wonkiness is no longer acceptable, and a great deal of that is due to language and raising awareness about the person behind the disease or disability. I don't like to be defined by anything other than the meness that is me really so I don't like people referring to my gender as if we're a homogenous lump either.

 

[Andy HB]

I haven't read the whole thread yet, so apologies if it has moved on to other things already!

I don't equate being a diabetic with "being a spastic" (apologies for the latter term, I'm just making a comparison). I have diabetes, therefore I am a diabetic. It is purely a description for me and so I am not offended. Do I suffer from diabetes? Not exactly. I have some problems here and there because of the diabetes, but with the changes I made to my life as a consequence of the diagnosis in October 2009, I still feel I am much healthier than at any time in the previous 9 years to diagnosis. But, again, if someone refers to me as "suffering" from diabetes, it is just a term and I still won't take offence.

Andy 🙂

p.s. Reading the thread a bit further, I can also say that no-one has ever applied the description "a diabetic" to me as my one and only defining characteristic. I'd be amazed if anyone did. Plus, it'd say more about them than it did about me. 🙂

 

[trophywench]

Nous sommes naturistes - but it's rare actually that you come across anyone 'camp' LOL Most of us are fairly blunt, about most things. You don't bother packaging stuff all in all - when you aren't yourself packaged I suppose ! - we are WYSIWYG, we are!

One of the GPs at our surgery (my favourite who has retired, since) said to me one day in conversation about my TSH level, that he'd always found 'people like you' do better with lower TSH levels than he might be recommending for others.

I said 'When you say 'people like me', Doctor, are you meaning elderly brunette insurance brokers, perchance?' (I knew he didn't) and he sort of sat back with a jolt, at which I burst out laughing at his face - then he also laughed. And admitted that No - he meant PWD. I chuckled about his discomfiture for ages.

 

[Andy HB]

I said 'When you say 'people like me', Doctor, are you meaning elderly brunette insurance brokers, perchance?' (I knew he didn't) and he sort of sat back with a jolt, at which I burst out laughing at his face - then he also laughed. And admitted that No - he meant PWD. I chuckled about his discomfiture for ages.

I like 'awkward' situations being dealt with by humour. 🙂 It has the capacity to turn things around to being much more positive (assuming the other person is receptive to the humour .... that isn't guaranteed, of course!).

 

[trophywench]

Well some does fall on stony ground of course, and that is dependant upon the other person's intelligence and social skills.

remember being sat in the 'GP with a special interest in D' office -he'd mad a call to find something out and we needed the answer so we were waiting. Silence. So I said - I love that photo on your wall over there - is it a bought one or what? No - it's just one I took one day when we happened to be (forget where) Oh - don't think I know it - is that a part of the country you visit often? No. End of conversation. Silence ......

 

[Copepod]

One of the scariest things I've ever seen was when kayaking upstream from Cambridge to Grantchester, past the Riverbank Club, where we often saw nude swimmers, which was fine - they adjusted from swimming on back to front if appropriate, they waved, we waved. But once, I saw a man wearing only boots, shaping a high hedge with an electric hedge trimmer. A few years later, I discoverd that a volunteer at a park where I worked was a member. He apologised, saying people were only supposed to be naked behind the hedges or in the river. I said I wasn't offended at all, merely worried about his safety!

 

[Nicola16]

I have recently diagnosed with gestational diabetes, which may be type 2 and so far have felt nothing but support rather than judgment, likewise I haven't had it long enough to have come across judgment..

To the point though....I feel it's more helpful to say I have diabetes than I suffer from it. Suffer is a negative word and don't we want to encourage people to be positive, take control and manage their diabetes. Suffer for me makes me sound like a victim which I am not.

To say diabetic doesn't have quite the same negative slant to me personally however again this is about using our language carefully to encourage and engage people to manage the condition rather than feel negatively about it.

For me a slight tweak to wording could make the world of difference to someone reading the letter and save the team time dealing with complaints or disengaged people.

 

[Shimmmer]

I have been living with T1 diabetes for 34 years, if people refer to me as diabetic I don't take offence because, although diabetes seems like my invisible siamese twin which trips me up when no one is looking, it does not define me.

So I choose not to be insulted when people refer to me as diabetic but I respect those who do.

 

[Copepod]

Welcome to the forum, Shimmer. Please introduce yourself in Newbies section, if you'd like.

 

[m1dnc]

Gosh, I am reminded of one of my grandfather's favourite sayings: "I don't care what you call me, as long as you don't call me late for dinner".

However, I would prefer not to to called 'a diabetic', as I would prefer not to be called 'a gay'. I am a person who has diabetes and who happens to be gay; I don't suffer from either of these things. As is evident from this thread, most people just shrug off these things without taking offence, but some do, and that should be taken into account when drafting letters like this. As Deus says, it is not difficult to express these things in ways that are not likely to upset anyone.

 

[Redkite]

Coming to this rather late....as a Mum I would always describe my son as "having type 1 diabetes" or "being insulin dependent" if I needed to mention his condition. It isn't an illness, he doesn't suffer from it (most of the time!), however since it is a long term health impairment, it does give him rights under the Equality Act 2010 equivalent to having a disability.

I don't mind the adjective "diabetic", but using the noun, ie calling him "a diabetic" raises my hackles. He's not "a diabetic", he's a human being, a boy, a teenager, a pupil...with type 1 diabetes. Not "one of THOSE" and therefore pigeonholed and treated differently. Being diagnosed at the age of 4, I've had to fight for his inclusion in many aspects of school life, and labels like this are simply not on! It matters because the goal is to live a normal life with diabetes being just a small part of it, not to be defined by the diabetes.

Having said all that, I don't fly off the handle and complain every time I hear this, but I do pedantically correct people in conversation, ie if they say "he's a diabetic isn't he?" I might reply with "he has type 1 diabetes, yes".

 

[Ralph-YK]

It had never occured to me that it was any other way than every single one of us is a diabetic. As Redkite says we are other things. A male, older, a beard wearer, ... others things.
I've been bothered about being pigeonholed in certain other areas. Hadn't considered it for my diabetes. I've been more focused on being excluded by Health Care Professionals and not being told anything.