Recently I started to think about some of the things related to diabetes that really make me mad. Diabetes in general doesn’t because I have learned to live with it, deal with it and manage it. It is usually other people that make me mad when it comes to diabetes. Let’s start with the top 3 things, in no particular order.
Diabetic vs Person with Diabetes
I personally don’t understand all of the hype around this. If you want to call me a person with diabetes, go ahead. You want to call me diabetic, which I prefer, then go ahead. I don’t really care what you call me. Diabetic is just the term that is used to call somebody who has diabetes. Why all of a sudden is it such a bad thing? I think it is a good thing when someone calls me a diabetic, because I have diabetes, so therefore I am diabetic. I guess if I hear one very good logical reasoning of the PWD thing then I will go with it. Like I said, I have no problem if that is what you want to be called, I will call you that. Quite honestly, I would rather call you by your first name and not diabetic or person with diabetes at all.
Supply Switching
Who the hell are you (fill in the blank with your supply company) to tell me what meter, strips, lancets or pen needles I want to use? Do you think that I care about your bottom line figures and that you make more money off of the generic lancets than the brand name. I don’t really care about the 200% profit you are making, I care that the lancets that I am using are not damaging and bruising my fingers constantly. I want a pen needle that is going to penetrate my skin and not hurt when it goes in because its not sharp enough. A few years ago when I was still using an old supplier, will not mention names, they continued to send me these cheap generic lancets when I wanted the One Touch ones. They kept sending them every 90 days and I would call and tell them to stop, but they wouldn’t let me return them, I still had to pay for them. They then went far enough to tell me that the One Touch ones are no longer made, they have been discontinued. So when I was walking through Wal-Mart one day I saw them there and then went off on the company. I called 4 times a day every day for like 2 straight weeks to make sure I got every customer service rep there.
Not the same goal in mind
There are a lot of non-profits, organizations, blogs, communities and they do not know how to work together. What do we all want? A cure, right? Of course there are some other things that would be great along the way, but ultimately it is about finding a cure, spreading awarenss and giving people an arena to share and talk about, especially in the online world. Then why can’t we just all work together and not look at other people in the diabetes world as “competitors”. I’m not saying that everyone does that, I’m speaking of the minority on this one, but it just irritates the hell out of me.
Those are the 3 main things that just make me mad.
What are some others that tick you the wrong way?