#diabetes advocacy

[crippledpunks]

i wanna say fuck you to anyone who shame disabled, chronically ill & neurodivergent people, especially homebound folks, for "spending too much time on their phone/on the internet/etc." when it's the only (Somewhat) accessible way for them to experience the world. many people don't get to get out much even if they want to because of their disabilities. shaming someone for trying to connect with the world, make friends and engage with hobbies in ways that are accessible to them is beyond cruel and unnecessary

[gofitnesspro]

Diabetes in Young Adults: Causes and Solutions

Addressing the rise of diabetes in young adults requires comprehensive strategies that promote healthy lifestyle choices, including regular physical activity, balanced nutrition, stress management, and increased awareness of diabetes risk factors. Additionally, early detection through regular screenings and improved access to healthcare can help identify and manage diabetes at an earlier stage,…

[beautyandthebetes]

Y’all it is HAPPENING!

After years of talking about diabetes and providing education in my own way, especially in a red state where any ol PCP is allowed to “manage” it, I might have an opportunity to work with someone on advocacy for diabetic care at end of life. This is an extremely important topic to me because our needs change drastically during the dying process and I don’t even know how many people I’ve spoken to that didn’t know where to start with those changes. You can’t have a comfortable death if your bgl is constantly high, and if you don’t live in a private residence the facility may not be authorized to provide a patient with insulin injections. On the other hand, they may not need their regular injections if they’re not eating as much while the body begins to shut down.

So I’m gonna reach out to her tomorrow and I’m so excited to see where this goes, but in the meantime always remember that 👏🏻ADVOCACY👏🏻WORKS👏🏻

[windysjourney]

Unraveling The Mysteries of Autoimmune Diseases

In the intricate tapestry of the human body, the immune system stands as a vigilant guardian, defending against invading pathogens and maintaining overall health. However, in some cases, this defender turns against its own host, giving rise to a category

In the intricate tapestry of the human body, the immune system stands as a vigilant guardian, defending against invading pathogens and maintaining overall health. However, in some cases, this defender turns against its own host, giving rise to a category of diseases known as autoimmune diseases. This blog post aims to unravel the complexities of autoimmune diseases, exploring their causes,…

[crippledpunks]

chronic fatigue weaves its way into everything. people love to tell disabled people they'd love to rest as much as we do, but they fail to understand how tired we are while we rest. we are not relaxed, we are generally pretty miserable, either from pain, irritability, or fatigue- which bleeds into every aspect of your life. being too fatigued to get up off of the couch means that you're too fatigued to get to the cupboard to pull out pans to attempt to start cooking.

the steps hidden within steps that are required to do a lot of tasks related to being a "functioning adult" are daunting, there are often way too many steps necessary to make "Simple" foods or do "simple" chores for disabled people to accomplish these tasks. chronic fatigue often means that even waking up from a nap or night's rest requires time to adjust to and power through

waking up is a process for me. im often no more alert and awake hours after i've woken than I am right after doing so. caffeine does not help fatigue- at least not at safe doses, for me, anyways. many days the act of moving from my bedroom to my living room is too much. taking dishes to the sink can be too exhausting. i have began falling asleep in front of the kitchen counter while standing because i realize the amount of steps required to clean the counters, or do the dishes, or prepare a meal that all of my energy instantly bleeds away

it's okay if you feel this way too. i have been dealing with chronic fatigue my entire life and it cost me my best paying job. i lost my ability to work because of it. it's not just you being "sleepy", you are genuinely too exhausted to function. you do NOT have the energy levels other people do, and that's okay. it's okay to let yourself be tired sometimes and address that instead of trying to pretend you're not tired.

i wish you good luck. you are loved

[auschizm]

I see the "mental illnesses are caused by chemical differences in the brain which psychiatric medications can fix - just like how insulin treats diabetes" in a lot of mental health advocacy posts on this website, and I just want to state that this theory is not scientifically proven let alone factual. It has, for many decades, been a very useful narrative for selling and normalizing the use of psychiatric meds, and to add credibility to psychiatry as an institution of science. But despite many attempts, there isn't scientific documentation to back up that this is actually how mental illness works let alone how psychiatric meds treat mental illness. This is not to say that psychiatric meds can't and doesn't help anyone, but the "chemical imbalance" theory is a pop science myth - not actual scientific fact.

[edsandco]

I live in a single party consent to record state so I take audio recordings of my medical appointments, interactions with staff in hospital, etcetera. When tests, care, or supplies are refused, I ask if that's an acceptable clinical risk and for it to be noted in my records.

Medical supplier doesn't want to send extra sterile gloves, caps for the end of my line, or any other necessary supplies? You say is it an appropriate clinical risk for you to not give me a supplies that have repeatedly been shown to reduce infection risk? They don't want to send replacement tubing because some was damaged? You say is it an appropriate risk for me to miss my medically necessary treatment because you're unwilling to replace supplies damaged in shipping? If being hospitalized is the inevitable conclusion if you miss an infusion add that into your response scentance.

You can use similar wording to address refusal of testing, surgery, follow up visits, etcetera. I also explain the risks that exist if a doctor wants me to do X, Y, or Z thing that I've been told not to do or that could lead to fainting or injury.

I know it's hard, traumatizing, and exhausting to constantly need to advocate for yourself. Just keep doing the best you can and if you can't advocate by/for yourself in a certain situation there is no shame in having a friend, family member, partner, etcetera with you to provide support or help advocate for you.

This is why fat shaming can have tragic consequences.

[2boldlyqueer]

Hi, you reblogged a scam from fullbarbarianblaze, who is promoting a donation scam. They have had this scam running for a very long time, and this link leads to a post with the trail of all the usernames they've used to run this scam, starting with their header name, vero-og. https://www.tumblr.com/kyra45/740721061635768321?source=share

It has been going on for months, meaning that their story of constantly needing "just $370" for insulin is dishonest. Their PayPal name is "Sophia Magubo" which is not a Native American name, but an East African one. (This PayPal account has also been consistent through all of these blogs they've held.) Since they apparently live in the U.S., they should know by now that the price of insulin was capped at $35/pen, meaning that even if they were unable to buy a single unit, a full box of pens (3) would cost $105 plus tax.

Their insulin reading photo shows a 592, which could not last for months on end. Typically a reading of 592 is severe and would warrant a hospital visit if they were out of insulin. It could lead to a coma or death, not waiting idly by for days, hoping for tumblr users to donate to your PayPal.

Please, before interacting with a donation request, check their blog. Do searches of the text username through the tumblr search engine or reverse image search their photos, as some users have compiled scam lists. (e.g. kyra45, anonthescambuster, azalea-alter) Many donation requests are honest, but there are plenty of repeat scammers who are taking advantage of people's sympathy and generosity.

If you are interested in supporting a family whose fundraiser has been through a vetting process and is in danger of being killed in Gaza, please replace your post from fullbarbarianblaze with a post supporting @/nesmamomen. If you have any questions about how to determine the legitimacy of a donation ask, feel free to contact me through DMs or askbox.

While it does appear that this person is scamming people, I have some issues with this ask, to be honest. You have good intentions, which is why I'm responding to let you know about these concerns, instead of just ignoring it like I initially planned to.

Context: I am a white US American with type 1 diabetes, and my response is based only on how things are in the US. A lot of my diabetes facts aren't sourced because they're things I learned from my doctors, or in my time doing advocacy and educational outreach with the American Diabetes Association in high school and 2017-2019.

Firstly, just because someone's PayPal name does not match the ethnicity or nationality you think they are, does not mean they are lying. This is an incredibly slippery slope to start on. Interracial and intercultural marriages exist, and are quite common in the US.

This is especially true of Native American people, who face a ton of issues around the concept of "blood quantum" and not being counted as Native because of it. I am not Native American myself, so I highly recommend you look into what actual Native Americans have to say on the topic. Here's one place you can start:

ID: embedded link for "Blood Quantum and its role in Native Identity - The Indigenous Foundation" with an old black and white photograph of four Native American men in European style formal suits. /End ID

Highlight from the article for our purposes:

Blood Quantum, as a way to ascribe Native American membership, has dire consequences. Blood Quantum policies are little other than genocidal and will eventually lead to the extinction of indigenous people. For example, if the blood quantum limit is set at ¼ in tribal enrollment, and intermarriage proceeds, natives will eventually be defined out of existence. It is almost as if this erasure was premeditated by the government.

While you and I aren't actively trying to legislate them out of existence, by judging a Native American for having a "not Native" name, you are perpetuating the idea of what a Native American is or is not, and that by marrying and having a child with someone of a different culture, that child is automatically not Native enough.

Secondly, the information and assumptions you include about diabetes are not accurate. You say the reading they show is too high to last for months on end. It is possible to be that high for many weeks and sometimes even months. Typically it's before diagnosis, and it will lead to miserable symptoms and long-term complications, but it's not unheard of.

They also never claim to be in the 500s for months. As far as I can tell, that idea is coming from the same image with the same number being used for multiple campaigns. While I can understand you being reasonably skeptical of this, I could also fully see a miserable diabetic who isn't great with tech thinking they could just use the same picture.

One of the things that happens when your blood sugar is too high is that your brain literally doesn't work right. You aren't getting enough glucose into the cells that need them because it's all stuck in your blood, which causes irritability, trouble focusing, fatigue, confusion, and other mood changes. Keep this in mind whenever you say that this person "should" know something about diabetes, or that they would certainly be going to the hospital with a blood sugar that high.

Personally, the one time I had to go to the hospital for a high blood sugar, four people had to talk me into it, and I was told later by my family that I begged the doctors in the Cardiac Care Unit to let me go home because I could treat it myself (I was in the CCU because my blood sugar was high enough that my heart was in danger of failing, and I was told afterwards what happened because my brain wasn't functioning enough to form memories). I also tried to decline an ambulance when my blood sugar was severely low, as I knew in my addled state that my insurance wouldn't cover the bill and that I didn't have $2000 to spare.

Regarding the price of insulin, I live in a state with very robust Medicaid that I'm on, and I have issues at least twice a year with my insulin supply. Recently, I had to get a friend to give me a vial of hers to get me to my refill day, as I ran out two days before my insurance would let me get it, and it would have been almost $100 to fill it early.

Let's take a look at GoodRx to see the best prices possible in a less kind state to live in, like Texas. The amount of insulin required per month varies wildly depending on person, but Native Americans tend to have insulin resistance, so I'll go with 4 vials, as I'm highly insulin resistant and use 6-7 vials a month.

ID: screenshot from GoodRx of prices for 4 (10ml) vials of insulin lispro 100 units/ml in Austin, TX (73301). Prices are: Walgreens $51; Walmart $114.21; CVS Pharmacy $93.50; HEB Grocery $101.68; Community, a Walgreens Pharmacy $51; Costco $114.40 with Special offers available; Target (CVS) $93.50; Randall's $104.52 with Special offers; Walmart Neighborhood Market $114.21 /End ID

Indeed, it's not $370 like the person was requesting, but it's potentially more than you suggested. And it often doesn't make sense to buy one vial when you need more in a month, as it is more expensive.

ID: screenshot from GoodRx of price of 1 (10ml) vial of insulin lispro 100 units/ml in Austin, TX (73301) from Walgreens, priced at $19.50. /End ID

They also do not specify which insulin they need. If this person is not on an insulin pump (highly likely with the level of care Native Americans tend to get, which I will get into shortly) they most certainly need more than one kind of insulin. The most common combo of insulins these days is insulin aspart or lispro (fast-acting insulins) and insulin glargine (AKA Lantus, a long-acting "basal" insulin). It's possible to be allergic to any of these (I am allergic to glargine) and you can get a different kind, but it takes a major fight with your insurance if you have one, or a higher price if you don't.)

Right now, Lantus is so kind as to have a major coupon available that brings the price of their insulin down to the Medicare cap of $35 for everyone (because the cap you mention is only for Medicare recipients, though it has had rippling effects across all levels and kinds of insurance.)

ID: screenshot from GoodRx of prices for Lantus (1 carton (5 solostar pens) 3ml) in Austin, TX (73301). Prices are: Walgreens $35; Walmart $35; HEB Grocery $35; and CVS Pharmacy $35, all marked as Exclusive discount. On the Walgreens line is the text "$518 retail Save 93%" with the price crossed out. /EndID

Notice that teeny grey writing there with the retail price? $518 for a month of Lantus! A shitty pharmacy could absolutely get away with charging up to that price, without letting their customers know about the discounts available.

I mentioned that I'm allergic to Lantus. Last year, I ended up buying a month worth of the version I can tolerate (Tresiba/insulin degludec if you're curious) out of pocket to have as a backup. I paid about $80 for it, which tracks in Texas as well, though it could be double or worse depending on the pharmacy you can use:

ID: screenshot from GoodRx of prices for insulin degludec (1 carton (five 3ml flextouch pen…) in Austin, TX (73301). Prices are: Walgreens $84.92; CVS Pharmacy $160.34; Randall's $183.09 with Special offers; HEB Grocery $184.34; Walmart $189.82; and Costco $200.46 with Special Offers /EndID

Given all that, this person could easily have to pay $370/month if they have bad/no insurance, a shitty pharmacy, and don't have a doctor that will help them get the least expensive options. Not everyone knows about GoodRx and other ways to save on medications.

In fact, my biggest issue throughout your ask is that you have multiple statements on what this person "should" know about our healthcare system or diabetes in general. This is, to be frank, a very privileged view of health education in our country, especially for Native Americans with any concerns.

ID: A Native woman in casual modern clothing looks into the camera neutrally, posing in an office /End ID

Highlight from that article for our purposes:

Indian Health Service, the federal agency responsible for providing health care to federally recognized tribes, is chronically underfunded and doesn’t administer specialty care. So, depending on where one lives on the reservation, a person may have to travel hours for things like cancer treatment, behavioral health services or even to deliver a baby. 

You know what requires specialty care? Diabetes! Now, technically speaking, you can get diabetes care through a primary care doctor. That said, every single primary care doctor I've ever had has deferred to me as the expert in my diabetes, as I have significantly more training on it from my specialist care than my primary care doctor does from their schooling.

What does proper diabetes education look like? When I was diagnosed, I spent a week in the hospital learning how to manage. Then, I started seeing a diabetes endocrinologist (endo), a certified diabetes educator (CDE), and a diabetes ophthalmologist, with the endo and CDE being available via phone and email 24/7 (with a response time typically under 24 hr). (Also available at my kick-ass diabetes center are diabetes specific social workers and art therapy, which I only don't use because I have a therapist I love.)

From my diagnosis in 2007 up until the pandemic, I saw at least one of these specialists every 3 months. On top of that, I had access to classes outside of these appointments where I could go learn about a specific diabetes concern with a bunch of other diabetics (for example, I took a 3 hour class entirely dedicated to how to drink safely with diabetes!) Frankly, a lot of these appointments are dedicated to repetition of important things, because you have to learn so much to manage your health that it's impossible to remember everything, especially if you've only heard it once when you were still processing the diagnosis in the first place.

Imagine having to do all of this, but needing to drive over 50 miles each way, when you're already poor and struggling to survive (an assumption we can make about a Native American begging for help paying for medication online, especially considering the higher rates of poverty they face.

All minorities across the US tend to be left behind in diabetes education and support, and while there are many groups working to help, they aren't able to get to everyone. (Intense irony, I tried to access the CDC's Native Diabetes Wellness Program during this search, and initially got sent around multiple dead links! Even when you try to access the info it's not always there! Plus, it's type 2 specific, which is a whole other rabbit hole I'm not going down right now other than to say it can be hard to find type 1 specific info and they are very different diseases.)

All of this to say, while there are legitimate reasons to believe that user is a scammer, many of the reasons you included in your ask are not, and are instead based on anti-Native American ideas and medical misinformation. This quite honestly makes me less inclined to believe you, and it weakens your argument. All that was necessary was saying that the same exact paypal, story, and image have been used across multiple accounts (ideally with a link to proof, like another user who sent an ask about the same person did.)

[acti-veg]

hi, do you know of any charities which help people with diabetes which don't conduct animal testing please? thank you

Hey anon. This is a bit tricky without knowing where you are, as most of these organisations are national. I can give you some general advice, though!

With health charities, you’re better off looking for groups that are engaged in support functions rather than research. Look for those who are focused on patient advocacy and education, in particular. If they’re engaged in research then they’re probably testing on animals, unfortunately, though there are some exceptions, like Animal Free Research here in the UK.

[ceaseless-exhauster]

Yeahhhhhh this tastes like me finding out I was diabetic four years after my sky-high blood sugar was documented and diabetes was added to my chart during an unrelated hospital stay

And I was SEVENTEEN when it was initially charted so don’t tell me it’s about “keeping kids safe from things they won’t understand yet”

Not to sound like a person who actually cares about children, but it's so alarming that there's this tendency and trend of not telling kids about their medical conditions that are in their charts.

I'm finding out as an adult that they (though it's not documented who) diagnosed me with a life-long, chronic condition without telling me when I was a teenager. I found out recently when I got curious about my medical charts, and otherwise, I would not have known what's wrong with me. I've been left with more questions than answers, and I feel like a private investigator investigating my own damn health and life.

Is this medical malpractice? Yes. However, I think it also speaks to a broader point of how children are seen to not be entitled to their own lives in any capacity, to the point where they are (intentionally or not) made ignorant about things that are or will affect them.

[n0ts0phism]

I'm gonna go ahead and copy the post's text here, just so my story doesn't have to be completely offloaded to another website. You can read it after the break.

An apology is in order. My work on this blog slowed to a crawl recently. I couldn’t muster up the energy to commit to writing routinely. It’s not that I didn’t want to, don’t get me wrong; I still have lots I want to say. My resistance to posting anything right away is because I don’t want to talk about exclusively negative topics.

But there’s one inescapable fact that has influenced my decision-making throughout Summer and Fall:

The job hunt where I live is demoralizing, yet despite that, I’ve been hyper-focused on it.

My mind is at odds with itself. If I’m investing too much time in a job hunt, it begs for me to stop. But it simultaneously urges me to keep going—because it feels like it doesn’t deserve to stop fretting about my employment prospects until I’ve applied to something. There have been multiple times when I’ve applied to a position that I knew I’d dislike or be a poor fit for. Whether it be due to my lack of experience, the complications of my disabilities, or having to account for my demented father when it comes to commuting—or doing anything outside of the house, for that matter—my job choices are limited. I’m trapped, others like me are just as trapped, and society only pretends to care about us.

I do at least have some advocates helping me through the job search and disability advocacy. And thanks to my father’s SSDI, meager as it is, I’m more financially stable than I would be living alone. But unfortunately, that job-hunting-first mindset has only recently decided to budge. So much time was lost on anxiety over employment, time that could’ve been spent on personal development in my hobbies. Or, more relevantly, that time could’ve been spent updating this blog, screaming into the void, and hoping someone would shout back.

There’s more to my outlook on this period of my life than the job hunt itself. While I’ve held down paid positions before, they collectively only lasted a little under a year. Both were retail associate roles, and both ended with me exiting on bad terms with my employers. For privacy reasons, I won’t give out the company names, but I don’t care if my former workmates find this. The writing from this point will be fairly rough and ramble-filled.

JOB #1

I was quite excited to start out working for this company. The staff seemed welcoming enough, to the extent that they wanted to get down to business and not fool around. It was all for the better, too; this was an office supply retailer that hired me just in time for the back-to-school season, and customers would be flooding in to prep their kids for the year ahead. It was nice growing accustomed to how things worked in this place; the training modules were decently thorough.

… But things started going downhill the second an abusive coworker made her opinion of me known on the same day. Going forward, I’ll refer to her as Kay. When we met, she not only didn’t greet me, but the very first thing out of her mouth when she decided to talk to me was “Do you not have work to do?”

I was on my lunch break. Because how dare I stop to take care of myself when my diabetes requires somewhat strict mealtimes?

Since then, Kay remained openly hostile and condescending towards me, rudely ordering me to get out of her way and dressing me down for even the slightest mistakes. Mind you, she was a fellow sales associate with no official power over me. It’d still be unforgivable if she were a manager, but her humbler role just makes her treatment of me worse.

Even so, Kay did have some seniority over me. She’d done good logistical work for the store over the years, and she was in the good graces of nearly every manager. At the very least, I wasn’t the only one who recognized how problematic this person was. But the store manager was too spineless—or rather, too willing to turn a blind eye—to discipline Kay whenever our coworkers voiced their concerns.

After the back-to-school season ended, business dropped off a cliff. There would be extremely long periods of nothing to do for me between customers, often as long as thirty minutes to an hour—which was frequently 25% of my shift for the day. The training modules did not prepare me for unstructured time, so, unless I was given furniture or a display to assemble… I spent a lot of the latter half of my six months in this store standing around and watching for oncoming customers.

Don’t get me wrong. I certainly tried to do more with my time, but I got conflicting information from my managers. Some of them wanted me to man the registers constantly and let other people complete other tasks, while others wanted me to venture out and do something other than wait, even if that meant leaving the registers unattended.

While this was happening, I’d stuck up for myself against Kay’s verbal abuse a handful of times. The first time, I politely but firmly told her to stop treating me like an idiot, after she began dressing me down for confusing one customer’s order for another. She backed off after that; I could tell she wasn’t used to retaliation in this setting.

Kay’s shock continued when, after once again ordering me to get out of her way, I snapped back at her—within reason--to cut it out. I seemed to be disappointing everyone at that point, between the managers and their poorly expressed and unfulfilled expectations, and now, this power-tripping bully once again displacing her frustrations with life on me. I had enough.

Of course, when word got around about what happened, I was reprimanded for my response. Never mind the fact that the head manager, Jay, said to my face that she knew this coworker was abusive due to past incidents, but did nothing to address it. From that point forward, all the managers grew increasingly passive-aggressive with me, especially one who also began displacing her frustrations about unruly customers onto me. I assume they and the others took Kay’s side because it’s easier to blame the new guy with the disability.

This isn’t just me playing a victim card here, or assuming the worst out of frustrated retail workers. I know definitively that they hated dealing with me and my diabetes. The nicest coworker I met there, Pim, was a retired nurse, and she relayed to me that Kay once vented to her about me and my diabetes. Considering everything else I’d heard about Kay by this point, I was deeply inclined to believe Pim, and still am; she had no reason to lie about this, and it lined up with Kay’s contempt for me too well. The managers were likely eating up every bad thing she was saying about me, like a pack of starved wolves.

There had even been times when my head manager snarkily asked about why I was taking my lunch break so early, despite the fact I had established my diabetes-related strict eating habits as early as the first week of the job. In fact, in times when I was manning the registers with nothing else to do, that manager asked me—and specifically me, no one else; I checked—to stand by the entrance and greet people. Another manager was confused about what I was doing one day, and when I explained, he seemed to have more questions than answers…

As you can imagine, midway through my final month in this job, I worked hard to find a new job and get the hell out of there. I managed to cut down my two-week notice to one week after finding something, and I left without saying goodbye to anyone except Pim—the one coworker who gave a crap about me and my struggles.

All this time, I felt I was losing my passion for illustration again. But as the first day of the new job and the last one of this current role both drew near, I started to realize my confidence was being pushed down by people who were bankrupt in good character. The best I had managed to do on the side were doodles of trees… So it was rather appropriate, then, that I managed to digitally paint on as my first finished piece done in the Krita program.

The victory was fairly short-lived, however, as complications with the second job began to arise shortly after its completion. But I still appreciate what it stands for: my growth in opposition to a world that wants me to kneel.

JOB #2

My second job was another retail position just down the street, this time specializing in home décor and gifts. It started as a temporary job for the holiday season, and I took to it like a fish to water. Business was constant, the register system was identical to the one in the first job. Sure, it was the exact work as before, but I liked it enough to transform it into a year-round position. The whole reason I did was because my coworkers seemed a lot more understanding about what I was going through.

Emphasis on “seemed,” at least when it came to the head manager.

Mills was a gossipy sort. Even during the interview, she asked me to elucidate on my negative experiences in the first job, and I, desperate to escape and find solidarity with someone, opened myself up all too willingly.  She was probably genuinely concerned at the time, but it’s also a product of her two-facedness. Based on her regard for her customers, this was someone all too willing to viciously deride someone behind their backs while putting on an insincere smile whenever they were in the vicinity.

She even expressed how prideful she was in the gossipy culture she cultivated for the store, something that was maintained by the encouragement for managers and fellow associates alike to text each other. I ended up being too open about myself, simply because Mills and some of the others were overly open about themselves. This set a bad precedent for me even long after this job ended. It probably had something to do with my autism, but I assumed this sort of honesty about job troubles would fly in every interview. Thankfully, I caught on to how wrong that was after only one.

A few months into the job, Mills requested I stop pulling out my insulin pump when attending the registers. From what I remember, she feared corporate would assume I was pulling out my phone in plain view of the customers. I complied, simply because I assumed she had my best interests in mind…. But knowing what I do know, this was probably the biggest red flag of the two before the actual fallout. Intended or not, this was flat-out discrimination. If I need to deliver insulin through my pump, it is infinitely more practical to deliver it on the spot.

I shouldn’t have to cater to a corporation’s inability to tell the difference when I’m only trying to take care of myself. Besides, if my blood sugar is out of range, that can often leave my motor skills impacted. Having to retreat to the back of the store to administer treatment in private meant I’d be liable to trip on something. This wasn’t a corporation that knew how to apply basic logic; they just wanted to protect their fragile sensibilities by refusing to acknowledge a person’s diabetes—which would be manageable if I was given the grace to do so.

Unfortunately, I was not given that grace. In March of this year, I had three blood sugar episodes across a time span of two weeks.

The first one was a persistent case of hyperglycemia—high blood sugar—caused by two failed infusion sets. Eventually, I requested I go home; the issue hadn’t been corrected by the time I arrived at work, and I’d spent an hour and a half sitting in agony in the break room as I struggled to recover. This was entirely fair, but it colored my coworkers’ outlook on me going forward, especially in the subsequent incidents.

The last two were cases of hypoglycemia—low blood sugar. This time, Mills pressured me into returning home because of a perceived attitude problem. I was visibly tired and sad because I was running out of energy, but I didn’t figure that out until after she made her decision. I didn’t feel like I was able to argue, so I once again complied.

The final incident saw me catch the low blood sugar this time… which meant having to take a second break to eat more food to make things right. Though she tried her best to hide it, Mills remained visibly and audibly incensed about this, questioning why I can’t just eat like everyone else, callously suggesting I upend my mealtime routine so I can make do with only one meal break alone. I tried explaining that it wasn’t feasible without serious consequences to my health, and while she seemed to accept my explanation, she seemed to remain unsatisfied.

I was correct. By the time I got home, my blood sugar was back in range, so I decided to apologize for what happened to Mills over text. The following is the paraphrased conversation:

Me: I'm sorry about the additional break I took tonight. Sadly, no matter how good my control is with my blood sugar, I'm going to end up burning through whatever food I’ve eaten, as doing work like that uses up a lot of energy. I was on my phone back there looking at potential food that could help with this. I'm going to try some of it out next time I have a longer shift like this. Mills: As I stated, it's my job to make sure that we comply with each other. You communicated to me clearly what you needed, and I, in turn, communicated the company’s break policy. It’s not more complicated than that. I need to communicate company policy. I do have worries. I might need to see if you may need some accommodation. Let's see where it goes from here. You might just not be able to do the job, and I'm waiting to see if we can work out some things. You must be able to hold your own... and I'm just not seeing it at this stage. We’ll discuss this when I’m next available.

It was probably a mistake speaking about this blood sugar issue in absolutes, but it’s true. When I’m low, I need food to keep it higher. And as for the response I got, I feel there’s an attempt to stay professional and understanding, but some of that frustration bled through, clear as day. And it’s even more insulting to read now after approaching M about this issue in person. She acted like the conversation didn’t even happen until I elaborated. It’s like dressing me down over text was the most unremarkable part of her day.

She had a litany of issues with me that went entirely unexpressed until that afternoon. I don’t want to toot my own horn and say I was a saint, as a handful of them were legitimate complaints. No one’s perfect, and there’s always room to improve. The only reason I know the rest were discriminatory was because I also asked for them in writing. Establishing a paper trail is useful in situations like these… And sure enough, most of the complaints traced back to my diabetes, just worded in such a way to avoid implicating it as the issue. And when I asked Mills about whether the diabetes was to blame, she instead fingered my autism.

No one aside from Mills was passive-aggressive with me during my last days in the store, but I no longer felt welcome. And by early April, I exited and didn’t look back for a second… And that unfortunately brings me to where I am today.

I’ve struggled to find a job ever since. Life with my father has grown harder, as his mental health has seen some sharp declines. I feel demoralized, resentful, and more than frustrated. It’s not all been doom and gloom, however. I managed to get an official diagnosis of my autism, and I’ve built quite a rapport with some friends of mine, both my one in-person friend and his family and a few online ones through Discord.

And, well… Like my grief with Tiger, I did manage to complete one art piece to embody how horrible those ten months were. The bullying, the rejection, and the anxiety of not being able to push forward…. It put me right back where I was in 2022, facing an imaginary monster in an epic fight to the death, a monster that restricted and taunted me for feeling I wasn’t good enough. A monster I tried drawing again right after the tree painting in 2023, but I couldn’t finish this other piece in time for the new year.

But, shortly before my 26th birthday, I found it in me to not only complete the piece but take some significant risks in doing so. I may be struggling now, but I can rest easy with this victory:

But for now…. I must keep going.

[thursdaysinautumn]

I mentioned I thought I could be diabetic (type one) to my doctor. He said no, and didn’t even do labs for it. Skip over half a year later, he retired, and I have a new doctor, and she hears my symptoms and immediately does my lab. My blood sugar was 536, and my ketones were 40. I go straight to the hospital, and I spend the next week there. Safe to say I am a type one diabetic.

The doctors said I probably had been living with diabetes for the past two years without knowing. I would have gotten my diagnosis so much earlier had my doctor taken action, but apparently, had I waited even just two hours to start treatment, I would be in a coma.

[windysjourney]

Unraveling The Mysteries of Autoimmune Diseases

In the intricate tapestry of the human body, the immune system stands as a vigilant guardian, defending against invading pathogens and maintaining overall health. However, in some cases, this defender turns against its own host, giving rise to a category

In the intricate tapestry of the human body, the immune system stands as a vigilant guardian, defending against invading pathogens and maintaining overall health. However, in some cases, this defender turns against its own host, giving rise to a category of diseases known as autoimmune diseases. This blog post aims to unravel the complexities of autoimmune diseases, exploring their causes,…

[geekynerfherder]

'Guillermo Del Toro's Pinocchio' by Giulia Del Mastio.

Officially licensed 24" x 36" screen print, in a numbered Regular edition of 100 for $50; and a numbered Variant edition of 50 for $60.

100% of profits will be donated to the JDRF - the leading global organization harnessing the power of research, advocacy, and community engagement to advance life-changing breakthroughs for type 1 diabetes (T1D).

On sale Wednesday November 1 at 12pm ET through Bottleneck Gallery.

[bonefall]

I will say that as much as i adore mom!briarlight, it would be all but impossible for her to give birth to kittens on her own without without human intervention. I did a lot of research about paralyzed cats and pregnancy recently, and was only able to find examples where the cats underwent a c-section to deliver the kittens. Without being able to use her hind legs, it seems like it would be very difficult for her to give birth

I went and checked myself and I need more data, I found a decent but brief paper on it which uses one cat as a case study, but it doesn't specify at which vertebrae the spinal chord was severed which is SUPER important to compare with the human data I have

The paper: Özdemir Salci ES, Güner B, İpek V: Dystocia caused by spinal paraplegia in a cat with superfetation. Kafkas Univ Vet Fak Derg, 26 (6): 839-840, 2020. DOI: 10.9775/kvfd.2020.24689 (WARNING: CONTAINS PHOTOGRAPHS OF EXTRACTED FETUSES AND ORGANS. MEDICAL PAPER.)

If you can get me your sources I can give us both better data-- but the paper itself says that the reason the 4-year-old cat had issues giving birth was related to the nervous system itself plus loss of control over abdominal muscles, not necessarily leg positioning, which sounds a lot like an injury higher up in the spinal chord which makes me curious

(Injuries around T-10, the second-to-last of your thoracic vertebrae, is generally where humans lose sensation of childbirth. Aside from needing to be monitored for blood pressure issues it is possible for a person of nearly any spinal chord injury to give birth naturally)

(Also an article on pregnancy and delivery with a spinal chord injury for humans. Obvious TW for birth here. Also unfortunately the language is not very inclusive)

Though that said, I wonder how much of this would change even with just the one paper I have + sapient cats. Medicine for them is entirely cat-based and they make do with what they have, as opposed to humans where obviously the safest and easiest option is a cesarean.

Additionally, and I guess most importantly, it wouldn't be the first time I completely ignored cat anatomy because it was incompatible with human disability representation needs.

For example I exclusively reference Human Diabetes, NOT Feline Diabetes. This is because feline diabetes does progress from Type 1 to Type 2, and both types are treated with insulin injections. I was personally asked by a disability advocacy blog to not portray it Cat-Accurately, because Diabetic type progression does not happen in humans AND is a common misconception.

Plus several folks in my audience have basically asked me to make a version of metformin (oral supplement) to better represent their Type 2, which wouldn't happen if I was only referencing feline diabetes. (I caved guys it's going to be derived from Goat's Rue <3)

In the end we are humans, and I do extra fun fixes to Clan Culture based on cat accuracy (like making the kitties obligate carnivores and crepuscular!), but I am ultimately writing this for me and all the other queer disabled goofballs in the audience.

(and give advice based on that, in this situation, since they came and asked me personally y'know?)

[crippledpunks]

i love you so much if you are diabetic, or pre-diabetic. our society treats diabetes so poorly. it's such a readily mocked condition, people often times resort to blaming the individual for having it, even going so far as to pass judgment on the diabetic's character, regardless of what type of diabetes they have.

diabetics are wonderful and deserve to love themselves regardless of whether or not they 'gave' themselves their diabetes. whether or not the person is "unhealthy" whether or not the person eats "right" or knows how to eat in ways that are safer for their body doesn't matter, they still deserve love, respect, and compassion.

diabetes is not a fucking judge of character. diabetics deserve better. diabetics deserve respect. diabetics deserve to be recognized as disabled. diabetics deserve kindness, love, care, compassion, and support. no matter what.