Some people have no sense of decency do they. My daughter is in a wheelchair at the moment (nothing to do with diabetes). One time she was out with a group of friends, a woman was staring at her and then asked her friend “what’s wrong with her then?”. The friends deemed it not worthy of a reply and got up and left, taking my daughter with them. As they were walking away, the woman yelled “you should give her a blanket, she’ll be cold!”. Just because her legs don’t work, it doesn’t mean her brain and mouth don’t! I think she was too shocked to reply. We’ve had all the usual diabetes related ones as well, especially when she was at primary school. Some teachers were great, read the care plan, spoke to me, and dealt with everything correctly. Others just assumed they knew better. For example, at Christmas parties with the aid of the DSN we worked out a way of handling things so that daughter could eat whatever she liked during the party, the same as everyone else. She was on a pump so we just input a large number of carbs and told it to spread the dose out over 3 hours and it worked amazingly well for the inevitable carb-fest that kids’ parties usually are. But some teachers stepped in and stopped her from eating, which sent her low. I had to be phoned and tried to explain that she’s taken the insulin for it and can eat it. “But it was a massive pile of biscuits”. Yes, I know, we’ve dealt with it. A massive pile of biscuits isn’t good for any child, but you don’t stop the others from eating them! Etc etc. She’s 17 now so just gets on with it on her own, diabetes-wise, I don’t know if she’s had any comments like that recently.
On the flip side though, my daughter is also autistic, and gets very confused about the fact that when you are a child you are constantly told that you must be honest and tell the truth; when you get to teenage years, suddenly that isn’t always appropriate, e.g. when people ask you if they look nice in a new outfit and then get upset if you tell them honestly that you don’t think they do. I have spent much time trying to explain to her that people who are overweight are usually well aware of the fact and don’t need to have it pointed out to them. And that by pointing it out, you are basically making a criticism that you think they have done something wrong by allowing themselves to become overweight. Whereas you have no idea of the reasons why, and for all you know they might be trying to do something about it, or they might be perfectly happy as they are, and unless they choose to talk to you about it then it’s none of your business. I think she’s slowly getting it! (Yes I need to lose some weight too)
