Typical friends, round a table.
We pancreatically-challenged types are of course a generally lovely bunch, but above and beyond that I think we have some qualities that make us very useful to have around:
- We’re rarely found without a tempting stash of goodies, and if you’re nice to us we can sometimes be persuaded to share.
- We can be deployed as a secret weapon when you’ve been waiting hours for food in a restaurant. “My friend is a diabetic and needs food now” gets thing moving surprisingly quickly.
- We can be relied upon to have a giant bag full of diabetes junk, meaning that your wallet/camera/sunscreen can easily fit in there too.
- When travelling, our long winded explanations about insulin pumps at airport security act as a great decoy while you smuggle through those extra bottles of moisturiser you forgot you had in your hand luggage.
- If you get stuck in a really dull meeting and want an excuse to escape, a pancreatically challenged person experiencing a strategic hypo always needs someone to go with them to help out.
- Need a sterile needle to burst a blister? Look no further.
- Worried about a family member and want a quick diabetes test – we’re always on call.
- We’re the nearest you’re going to get to a walking dietary advisor. Want to know whether something has lots of sugar in it? Need help reading a nutritional label? Your friendly diabetic has more experience than most in this area.
And finally, any social event is always improved by a spontaneous hypo resulting in hilarious behaviour which provides people with amusing tales to reminisce over for years.
Get more out of your friends, choose a diabetic friend.
ah yes, my mum once used a sterile needle of mine to burst a blister on her partner’s hand – he had spilt a hot drink on it and the blister covered most of the back of his hand. she sucked out all the lovely stuff with the needle…yum!!!
thanks Shiv, I now feel slightly queasy 🙂
Don’t forget that having sterile needles also means as a teenager you can be favourite ear piercer to all your friends too!.. but after that incident I only ever had hot drinks at her house, the icecube used to numb the ear was retuned to the same stash – yuk!! Perhaps we should have used Emla cream instead?!!
@shiv – That’s revolting!
@charlie – Ditto!