reprimanding myself...

I feel compelled to clarify some of the things I said in my last post, so that I don’t alienate any of my readers (do I have more than one??) because of my “pain of the moment” writing :)

First, as Mike pointed out in his comment, I suppose I will take back my name calling of myself (although there are some days when I certainly FEEL like a fat cow), however I had a good reason for calling myself an idiot. See, even in my irrational ranting over my unchanged diagnosis, I knew that the things I was upset about were completely ridiculous, idiotic even, because, as I mentioned, why would any rational person prefer MDI’s over or in addition to a healthy diet?

Second, I should have used a lot more “quotation marks” when talking about T1’s vs. T2’s. A lot of things that I said are the common misconceptions that I know I hear from my side frequently. I’m certainly not playing the blame game on anyone’s genetics!

Some of the things that bug me about being a T2, though, are those common misconceptions, even by doctors and especially health insurance companies. With the insurance aspect, as a T2, if I get pregnant and am still on insulin, it will still be difficult for me to get on a pump for tighter control just because health insurance companies tend to feel that they are unnecessary for a T2, no matter what the circumstances.

The same generally holds true with test strips. Since with my old insurance didn’t cover any endocrinologists anywhere near me, I never bothered getting one, but my PCP is very cool and wants me to be proactive with my diabetes. She is the one who helps me get enough strips to currently test about 7 times a day, which is the max for my insurance. That’s a lot better than other T2’s I know who are only allowed to test 1 time per day. But if get married and change insurance again, I may be stuck with the “T2 doesn’t need to test that often” and won’t be able to. I know I’m still a newbie and maybe I will eventually be glad that I can’t test, but personally, I LOVE data. I love knowing what my numbers are. I would love to be on a CGM just to see the trends and know whats going on a little bit more!

And that’s just the stuff from insurance companies. From a personal perspective, I have seen people who should know better sit back and say that at least its not as “bad” as being a T1. And on the flipside I’ve had T1’s actually look DOWN on me, because I’m “only” a T2. So apart from the DOC, that’s what I run into all the time! Another weird aspect that I keep seeing, being near the Detroit area, is surprise that I’m a T2, because that’s something that inner city people get… (???? what????)

So hopefully that clears up a little bit about the stuff I was talking about in my last post. Like I said, I certainly don’t want to step on any toes just because I was upset. Generally I have a pretty good outlook on things, and try to put things in the proper perspective when I’m writing so that I don’t sound biased or anything. Thanks again to Mike for pointing out that I had lost my perspective :)