• Please Remember: Members are only permitted to share their own experiences. Members are not qualified to give medical advice. Additionally, everyone manages their health differently. Please be respectful of other people's opinions about their own diabetes management.
  • We seem to be having technical difficulties with new user accounts. If you are trying to register please check your Spam or Junk folder for your confirmation email. If you still haven't received a confirmation email, please reach out to our support inbox: support.forum@diabetes.org.uk

I saw one..! A real "Live" "Other" diabetic person!

Status
This thread is now closed. Please contact Anna DUK, Ieva DUK or everydayupsanddowns if you would like it re-opened.
bennyg70

bennyg70

Well-Known Member
Relationship to Diabetes
Type 1
This may sound odd, But its never ever happened to me...

Of all places - And I do and dont recomend if youve never done it - It was at afternoon tea. Somewhere Im not accustomed to, nor suited to...at all! However it was great - and then later when I tested my bloods - terrible!

Anyway when ever im out i always have my insulin pen just lay on the table, at the ready. I may use it 3, 4 or 5 times during a meal out, for different courses, preperation jabs, or for the first couple of pints. Always in view - Loud and proud... Then it happened..

I looked over to the next table and there sat a girl, about my age with a group of her friends, with her gleaming novarapid disposable pen lay out on the table... Just like me!

At that point I didnt know what to do, so I naturally reached into my pocket and grabbed mine too and put it on the table - Secretly hoping she would notice. I got quite a lot of stick at the time from my compadres as they watched me take mine out whilst telling them all excitedly about the diabetic on the next table.

During afternoon tea and my over indulgence in cake... I couldnt help wondering if she had noticed my pen too, and in my fantasys we were going to end up being best diabetic friends for ever and ever. I hoenstly had no idea what I should do in this situation which I had never encountered before. Should I go over, Or as the other half suggested maybe I should go over give her a little kiss on the cheek and just whisper.. ."I know".

But then it kind of hit home that there was a little bit of a connection whether she knew about it or not! That through this little pen lay out on the table - This girl I had never ever met before I knew so much about, what she had most likely been through, what she goes through on a daily basis, and how she was probably feeling right now, surrounded by cake, the temptation, the lost track of units injected and the feeling of bloods rising and rising just looking at all of those scones & Jam.

In the end - I did nothing, as any normal Human would do.
 
brilliant read Benny! I do this every single time i see OOOK (One Of Our Kind)...last time was a few years ago, ladies opposite me on the train were chatting away then she got her kit out (meter and injection) and started doin' her thang...I wanted to point at it all, show her mine and go 'me too! Me too!'

...I didn't, as I didn't want to be thrown off the train. I just sat there, quietly smiling to myself, thinking 'we're out there, aren't we?'.
 
Dory said:
brilliant read Benny! I do this every single time i see OOOK (One Of Our Kind)...last time was a few years ago, ladies opposite me on the train were chatting away then she got her kit out (meter and injection) and started doin' her thang...I wanted to point at it all, show her mine and go 'me too! Me too!'

...I didn't, as I didn't want to be thrown off the train. I just sat there, quietly smiling to myself, thinking 'we're out there, aren't we?'.
Click to expand...

After all my bumbling words and thoughts on here - Youve summed up what I wanted to say perfectly with 4 words "Me too, Me too!!"
 
:D Great read!

I have to say I have never yet seen someone test/inject but then most people do it so discreetly and fast that I guess I prob don't notice, I am not the most observant person lol.

I know what you mean about the "me too, me too!" type thing though, I think it's why support forums or groups (online & in real life) are so important! someone who just "gets it"......
 
I'm the same as Laura, I'd love to see/meet another diabetic when in a restaurant.

But loved reading about it Benny
 
I saw one..! A real "Live" "Other" diabetic person!
Click to expand...

So glad to hear she wasn't dead 😛:D
 
That made me smile 🙂 I've yet to have "The Encounter" (except of course at a forum meet!) but I suspect my reaction would be very much like yours.
 
I enjoyed reading that. Great way to start a Monday morning :D
I am yet to experience seeing a fellow diabetic 'in the wild' apart from on courses etc. I have encountered a few rogue used test strips on the floor, but that's about it. Odds are I will see one at some point. I wonder if taking pictures of them and observing from a distance would be considered weird behaviour? 😛
 
redrevis said:
I enjoyed reading that. Great way to start a Monday morning :D
I am yet to experience seeing a fellow diabetic 'in the wild' apart from on courses etc. I have encountered a few rogue used test strips on the floor, but that's about it. Odds are I will see one at some point. I wonder if taking pictures of them and observing from a distance would be considered weird behaviour? 😛
Click to expand...

Redrevis, not to worry you but it's Tuesday....
 
redrevis said:
Oh dear. You can tell the bank holiday has screwed me up. It feels like a Monday :(
Click to expand...

I'm off all week so I'm sure ill be in that boat!
I did have to double check the date on the calendar before I said it
 
When it happened to me recently, I just smiled at the next table, pointed to my kit and said snap. I got a rather sheepish grin back. I know what you mean though, the first time I spotted a kit on someone else's table there was a whole internal debate about whether to mention it or, I didn't that time.

Way back, the kit used to be so bulky and inconvenient. In the early 70s, I recall one of my schoolmates was diabetic and had to go to the nurse's office 3 times in the day for a 'snack' and a jab, the needles were huge. You couldn't casually leave one of them sitting on a table, the pens are much more discreet and far less scary looking.
 
Flying between Kuala Lumpur and Sydney, sitting in the 4 seats in the middle of the plane, lunch started arriving en route to Brisbane - lady next to me got out her Novoarpid disposable pen and I mine, and we both had a good giggle.

Last year on an Aire de Stationnemnt de Camping-Cars somewhere on the Gironde estuary, we got chatting to the people next to us, very nice Scots couple. We lent them a reference book overnight which she brought back next morning.

Hope you don't mind me asking, she says, but are you a diabetes nurse? I said No, just a diabetic - why? Turns out there were some bits of scrap paper I'd been using as bookmarks in this book and they were a sheet or two of meter downloads, which she recognised because her son is both a T1 and a DSN, works in Ireland, for Roche !

She said 'In fact, he's left so many spares in the van cos we all went away a couple of weeks ago - that if you were running short of anything I probably have it in there!' (pity I didn't meet you the previous year when I ran out of reservoirs, LOL)

I thought that was really beyond the realms of co-incidence.

But that's like twice, in 41 years !
 
10 days after being put on insulin one evening I was in a chinese restaurant in Manchester, where we'd gone to have a memorial service for my father in law in the Cathederal. I was unused to injecting so I went into the ladies. The cubicles were exceedingly cramped and nowhere to put my handbag down so I went into the area by the sink and injected. As I stood there with my Novomix30 pen in my tummy a young woman came in. I was very embarrassed and said "ahhhh, I'm not a drug addict, I'm diabetic" and she said "So am I, I've had it since I was 3". We ended up having a long conversation, ended only when my SIL came in to find me as the whole table was worried about me.

Another time I was in a bar in Heathrow in the departures area and ended up having a convo with a bloke who had dropped some test strips. We discussed how the little blighters got everywhere in the house like a trail!

I then discovered a colleague was T1 when he had to tell me that I needed to cancel a tutorial he should have given because he had his retinopathy appointment. We had a few discussions after that.

Plus once in the Brasserie de la Quay in Morlaix, Brittany, the guy at the next table injected just before me, but we didn't speak, even though he plainly saw me inject.
 
oh god whenever i see another diabetic i always try to make convo... i feel like type 1's are a rarity...
 
Last week a lady at my work was messing with what I thought was her mobile phone. Till i spotted her pop it back down her top. Now, i dont work in an environment where a lady needs to keep her mobile down her top, so i had a guess at what it was and went and said "is that a pump". I think she was suprised to see i knew what it was!! Should probably point out she has only been here a week, so we dont really know eachother!

So excited to see a real T1 with an actual pump!!! Had a really long chat about diabetes and the pump, and the difference it makes to her life, it was lovely to meet someone who has had diabetes for so long, and can help me. She was also happy to know that there is a chance if she goes hypo i can at least try to help and stop people doing anything silly like choking her by pouring sugar down her throat!!
 
I know a few young adults and older ones with t1 and of course I know many children and parents of those children. They all have that same need to be with 'others' or OOOK (love that), in the same way I love to be with the parents of a child with t1. It matters not that we don't know each other, what is important is that we absolutely 'get it'. We don't even have to talk about t1 but we know that we are all knackered and that our lives are spent thinking about t1 as much as, if not more, than the person with t1.

This is why I organise a holiday each year for CWD members. It started off with 14 families and this year in a few weeks it is our seventh year and we have over 300 people coming wow !!!!!! 😱 We love it as the parents and the kids, well you should just see them and watch them. The non d siblings are in the minority for a change and everywhere you go there are children with pumps beeping or injection pens, but they all have their bags and their lucozade or tabs, whatever they use. It is just fabulous, it really is.

We also have a young lady come with us (in her 20's) who we all idolise and want our children to be like when they are her age as she is such a great role model. Next year it seems we may have more young adults coming as we all just love being together.

Next time Benny, please say hello to that girl or lad you see. I bet she did see you and I bet she was just shy.
 
Status
This thread is now closed. Please contact Anna DUK, Ieva DUK or everydayupsanddowns if you would like it re-opened.
Back
Top