Get over it, bro.
I am at a meeting in Chicago for work right now. Week-long meetings, especially in a place with chilly weather, are always tough on diabetes. There’s tons of heavy buffet food, cocktails and late night nights, and little time to squeeze in some exercise. Between the lack of sleep, high stress levels from being “on” all the time, and the fried macaroni and cheese (no, really) that I had last night, lets just say my numbers have not been great. So imagine my relief when a cute sales rep sat down at my breakfast table this morning and pulled out a glucose meter for a morning check. In my mind, I had already placed him in the “comrade” category - you get instant street cred with me if you also have the ‘betes. We quickly struck up a conversation about diabetes, which was refreshing at this point, given that someone the night before had asked me how a “glucose pump” works….and I was relieved to be engaging with someone who gets it. Until he hit me with:
“Doesn’t your pump ruin your sex life?”
At this juncture, I realized it was not going to be worth it to dump my remaining scrambled eggs in his lap and call him a moron, so I simply answered:
“Nope. I guess its sorta weird at first, but any guy I’m going to be with gets me and my pump, no matter what activity we’re doing. Actually its a great filter for meeting people, because if you can’t handle a little tiny piece of plastic on my body, then you sure as hell can’t handle me.”
Homeboy goes on to tell me that he was on a pump for a while, and definitely had “increased glycemic control,” but went on a break from it because the “low battery” warning had started beeping on a hunting trip about a month ago, disrupting the game.
I’m not judging (ok, I am a little bit), but its scary to watch someone articulate the fact that they value what other people think over their own health. Hey, I’m not always stoked on my pump either. In fact, in the summer, I often go back to injections from Saturday to Sunday so I can hit the beach pump-free. And I have also been guilty of not wearing it during an initial intimate encounter. I consider that to be part of the liberty I take in managing my disease. But the bottom line is, you should love yourself enough to put your health first. If you don’t, who will?
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