Good diabetic? Bad diabetic?

Good or bad?

When I meet other people with diabetes or even just people who think they know a bit about it, they often make a judgement about my diabetes. “Oh, you’re such a good diabetic” or “you’re such a bad diabetic because you’re eating that”. Whilst my overwhelming urge is to tell them it’s my diabetes and they are only allowed to make judgements about it if they take it away from me and live with it for a day, it did get me thinking.

What kind of diabetic am I?

• My HbA1c is great and has been ever since I got my pump – good diabetic
  
• I use a pump – in some peoples’ eyes this makes me a bad diabetic because they’re expensive so I’m a drain on resources. I’m often tempted to poke these people in the eye whilst gently explaining that I’m worth it.
• I change my lancets on bank holidays and when the clocks go forward and back. Other than that I only change them when I realise they’re hurting – bad diabetic
  
• I always change my infusion sets every 3 days and I rotate them round my body lots to avoid under the skin scarring – good diabetic
  
• I attend all my annual check ups for eyes, feet, kidneys etc – good diabetic
  
• I do like to whinge about having to attend all these annual check ups and about having to sort out my regular prescriptions – bad diabetic
  
• Despite occasional whinging, I do try and look on the positive side of diabetes – good diabetic
  
• I spend a lot of time in bare feet and have just spent 2 weeks sailing when I barely went near a pair of shoes – bad diabetic
  
• I don’t keep a log book; I know it’s sensible I just hate doing it. As a child I really hated it when my Dr would look through my log book and say “Why do you think you were a 17 a week last Thursday?” I’ve been rebelling against keeping a log book since my late teens – bad diabetic
  
• I like chocolate but I know how to eat it in moderation and adjust my insulin to cope with it. Some people think this makes me a bad diabetic. A man at a conference once told me I’d go blind because I was eating a chocolate brownie. I shut him up by telling him my HbAlc and was very tempted to eat a second brownie just to irritate him.
• I blog about diabetes – thus improving my own emotional state and hopefully occasionally helping others – good diabetic

I (modestly) think I’m a good diabetic with just enough bad diabetic tendencies to make me tolerable. I do the important stuff and get the right results, but I’m very impatient with the amount of fuss involved and only do things I can see a real benefit in doing.

What about you, good or bad?