If you want to know about diabetes, isn't talking to us better than talking to the doctors?

Right now I am doing a presentation on schizophrenia. I have been asked to look at the classifications, and the diagnosis, and the symptoms ect ect, and as I have been doing it it occured to me that everything I am looking at is coming from a purely medical point of view, so I digressed a little from my research and tried to find out what schizophrenics say about being schizophrenic.


The reason I think this is so important is that I thought about when I go to the hospital, and they offer me all this advice and drugs and stuff, and they talk to you like they know everything (some of them do anyway, not all of them), and I just sit there and think it's alright for them, they can go home at the end of the shift and not have to think about diabetes, for them diabetes is a job, for me its life. And I know when people ask questions or want to find out about these things, they ask the professionals, which is fine, they know what they're talking about, but all they can give you is a text book definition, when you live it 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, you are qualified to talk about it I think and can do so so much better than people who work shifts with it and then leave it behind at the work place when they go home. 


I wanted to find out what it was like for people living with schizophrenia, because its all very well and good throwing me symptoms and diagnostic criteria, but how the hell am I supposed to understand it if I just have that to go on? I stand no chance! I think the only people who can tell me about schizophrenia, are schizophrenics. The only people who can tell you what it is like to live with diabetes, are diabetics and the only people who can tell you what if feels like to live with cancer are cancer patients. No-one can give you a better insight than someone who has been there and done it. If you work with us, you might have knowledge of it, but you cant possibly have knowledge of living with it, because the bets are , you dont.


I have gone against whay my psychology teacher actually wanted tonight, which is a risk, but the only way I am going to understand schizophrenia as a condition and be able to write about it is if I listen to people who actually know what it is like to have it and people who can tell me about it. Being told that a symptom of it is hallucinations is not going to help me, I need to know how it FEELS, what they think, I aren't going to get that from any diagnostic criteria. 


Keep Smiling :)
Love, Tutti-Frutti
xxx

Never Ever Let Someone Treat You Like This.....

The other day I was on the way to the bus stop and my blood sugar dropped really quickly. I had nothing on me (that in itself was a daft move) but the nearest place to me was a burger king which I was conveniently just walking past and was empty. I went in there and grabbed a coke and a burger and then saw the bus I needed pull up a little way away. 


I know that food is not allowed on buses, I am well aware of that fact, but it wasn't like I was going to throw it down on the floor, I was going to be eating it and sorting out my blood sugar.


I tried to step on the bus and the driver looked at me like I was some sort of bug that he quite fancied squashing. He very rudely said- "You aren't getting on here with that food".


I tried to ignore the rudeness and hostility in his voice and tried to be polite when I returned "I appreciate that but I am diabetic and my blood sugars have gone low, i'll be finished with it soon anyway can you not just let me on this once?"


He took back his hostile tone of voice and said- "You know the rules of the bus and you should have thought of that before, I aren't letting you on, you'll have to get on the next bus".


I was fuming, I didn't even know what to say. If he wanted proof, I had my iceband on my wrist, though how much more proof he needed when I was stood there shaking. The thing that added insult to injury was his total ignorance- "You should have though of that before" he had said, because usually I know exactly what time my blood sugars are going to drop! Idiot! He obviously had no knowledge of diabetes and what it can do if he thinks that we get like a days warning before out blood sugars drop, what a stupid, uneducated man.


Of course it got worse though, we rang up to complain (and eventually our complaint was put through) but the woman on the other end of the phone told my dad that I could have been lying. My dad didn't like that much, he said if someone had a heart attack on the bus would you assume they had been lying? And besides, would you not give someone the benefit of the doubt when they say something like that, just in case they dont lead such a sad life that they feel the need to lie about being a dibetic, and let them on the bus? Or is that just my naive side coming across? 


Anyway the point of this post is that I let this man treat me like crap. I never use my diabetes as a way to get me out of anything or get me on anything, I never lie about it, I don't need to. And what added insult to injury was that a few days later I was on a bus where someone got on with McDonalds, no questions asked, and proceeded to leave all their rubbish on the floor, yet they were allowed to do that, so why was it ok for them, but not for me when I actually needed the food? Never let someone treat you like this man treat me, it should never ever be done.


Keep smiling :)
Love, Tutti-Frutti
xxx