Snow White and the diabetic dwarves

By | 23 May, 2011
Are these gnomes or dwarves?

Are these gnomes or dwarves?

In my fantasy land where my diabetes is like a Disney fairytale, I float through life like Snow White. Beautiful and graceful with a song in my heart and a good word for all. I’m conveniently omitting the Evil Queen as she doesn’t fit with my perfect image. Occasionally though (or to be honest, most days) I think I’m probably more accurately represented by a mixture of the dwarves.

For the most part I am Happy. Life is good, diabetes is perfectly manageable. Sometimes I can even see an upside to it when it gives me opportunities I wasn’t expecting . And when the little things go right, when I’m still in single figures four hours after eating a pizza or I wake up as a 5, I smile a little smile and have a certain sense of inner happiness.

Some days I am Grumpy. Normally when I get sick of the 24/7-ness of the whole thing. But also for silly reasons, like being frustrated by the amount of junk I have to carry round, or getting irked because I have to eat and I’m not hungry, or getting hugely irritated by a health care provider who doesn’t share my expectations when it comes to my diabetes.

Sleepy raises his weary head when the CGM has been alarming all night to tell me I’m high or low. If I’m high I pump in some insulin and then silence the alarms but lows mean eating and checking and far too much time spent awake. Sleepy is very good friends with Grumpy, but it’s when they form an axis of evil with Dopey that you know it’s going to be a bad day.

Doc is around most of the time. Keeping up to speed with the latest developments in diabetes care that might be of use to me. Tweaking my doses, identifying problems and trying to fix them. Doc is very much a one trick pony, he’s an expert in my diabetes, but don’t let him advise you on anything else, he’s a complete quack.

Bashful, as you would expect given his name, is pretty quiet. But he does make an appearance from time to time.  He raises his head when a trip to clinic is on the horizon and stops me from being comfortable sharing my blood glucose results with anyone, regardless of how good or bad they are.

Sneezy is probably the politest of all the dwarves in that he always lets me know a couple of days in advance that he’s coming. The raised blood sugars are always a sign that Sneezy is heading into town. Of course, if Sneezy were to simply send an email to let me know he was planning to visit, that would be far less complicated and avoid the need for time consuming diabetic brainstorms.

And finally we come to Dopey. He often appears at the first sign of low blood sugar, making me unable to do even the simplest of things. But sometimes he’s there even when I’m not hypo. Like when he makes me forget to bolus for a meal, or completely miscount the carbs in my sandwich, or when I remove the infusion set I’ve just inserted for no good reason. Dopey is a disappointingly active dwarf.

All in all I think I get along quite nicely with all my dwarves and I think I’m probably better off being them than Snow White. After all, she forgot to bolus for that apple and ended up in a diabetic coma for years. Stupid girl.

15 thoughts on “Snow White and the diabetic dwarves

  1. Cecile

    @alison: How could you go so low – dwarves are just one step away from being a hairy gnome…though maybe it’s better being one of ’em than being Humasnogged by a prince 😀 (Personally, I’d rather approach diabetes in the august spirit of Tyl Uilspieël)

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  2. Nig

    “still in single figures four hours after eating a pizza” – yes, that was a very Happy me last night 😀 !
    3.2 this morning made me more Grumpy than Dopey, mind 🙁

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  3. Kaitake

    Love the reference to the diabetic-dwarf axis of evil! Lol

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  4. Spike Jones

    @alison Absolutely brilliant! I particularly liked Grumpy, Sleepy, Dopey & Doc. The axis is inspired.

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  5. Hairy Gnome

    I didn’t think this was remotely funny! I thought it was so uproariously, rib-tickleingly funny I laughed so hard I nearly wet myself! 😆 Dammit @Alison, it’s just not fair, why couldn’t I think of that? 😥

    Reply
  6. Annette A

    I’m sorry. The pedantic proof-reader in me insists that I tell you that it is actually dwarfs, not dwarves. Dwarves refers to mythological fantasy creatures such as created by Tolkien (who also changed the spelling). Dwarfs is used for “multiple nonmythological short human beings”.

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  7. Alison Post author

    @annette I would say that Disney dwarves were more mythological fantasy creatures than actual real life dwarfs 😉

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  8. Annette A

    Fantasy, yes, but not mythological. And Disney trademarked their names (you cant use grumpy,doc etc if you put on the panto without paying Disney shedloads) as being Dwarfs with an f. Amazing what big companies can get away with…(I used to work for a company who produced theatre programmes-copyright law used to drive us up the wall.)

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  9. Cecile

    @annette: Now you’ve blown Discworld’s dwarfs’ fantastic cover off – and are they tiny! 😀 (my Collins doesn’t endow -fs & -ves with fact & fictionhood…they’re held as variant forms of the same thing)

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  10. Alison Post author

    I’m now so far beyond my area of expertise I’m going to retire from this debate!

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  11. Spike Jones

    Just realized that Dopey rears his head a lot more than when my glucose is down the mine. Like when I do a test & cannot remember what it was 30 seconds later…

    That said, I did a test while out & about a couple of days ago & found, much to my surprise that I was 1.4. Oops. Spend 15 minutes wandering round Tesco trying to find the Lucozade (Why isn’t it in the fridge by the entrance?) before finally finding it & necking it. I eventually get home & discover I have lost my meter. That has to be a new Dopey record even for me!

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