Dead Pancreas Society

We’ve all read them, those posts on Twitter or Facebook or Instagram that tout keto will reverse your diabetes, eating paleo will help release toxins from your liver, drink this tea, eat this berry, stand on your head and chant for four hours a day and you’ll be magically cured.  This isn’t a new concept, people have believed in crack pot cures for what ails them for the longest time.  There is a reason why we call it peddling snake oil.  People have been gullible and vulnerable since the beginning of time and people have taken advantage of that.  It’s crazy to think it only started when social media made a huge boom.  Of course it didn’t.  However, the harmfulness of this practice was confined to how much power the person had to influence others and how many people they could reach.  With the popularity of social media at an all time high, so are the dangers of these suggestions, hints, claims of healing powers.  They are not only dangerous t...

Eating out is a treat in our house, because we are trying hard to be healthier.  We enjoy going out once a week as a couple (sometimes as a family but usually our restaurant adventures are just me and my husband), not having to worry about cooking or doing dishes and just enjoying each other’s company.  Not to mention, we enjoy trying new foods and new places and there were a lot of new places that opened up in a nearby town over the past six months.  Yet we also have our favorites: Cracker Barrel, Chinese, and the Waffle House.  Our first hand full of dates were at these three places so we are regulars there. The last bad experience I wrote about happened at CB.  It was no fault of theirs and they can’t control what other patrons do, especially when it is busy and these people are trying (but failing) at being discreet.  I have no doubt the manager at our local CB would not have tolerated the behavior if we had made her aware of it, but I didn’t because ...

For a very, very long time, I have been terrified of what people think when I inject in public, when I test my levels, and I figure up my carb ratio.  I think people are judge mental assholes but that isn’t why I fear these things, really. Growing up, no body really understood that there were different types of diabetics or what caused any of them.  People still don’t understand that type 2 isn’t always a lifestyle and food problem.  They tend to not even know that type 1 exists (though why there would be a type 2 without a type 1 baffles me).  However, growing up where and how I did people thought that diabetic always equals fat, and I have almost always been fat.  So there was no way people believed that my diabetes wasn’t because of my size, although it kind of was, because I only weighed 2lbs and 15oz when I was born and my pancreas never developed or produced insulin correctly.  This caused a fear for me that people would see me injecting or testi...

Sorry for the terrible formatting.  I’m writing this from my phone because this happened to me last night and it has been weighing on my mind all night.  I felt compelled to write about it as soon as I woke up.  I ain’t even had coffee yet, y’all, so you know this is serious. Here’s the deal.  If you see someone giving themselves an injection in public, Mind. Your. Own. Business.  You don’t need to stare.  You don’t need to make comments, snide nor supportive.  You sure as hell don’t need to snap a fucking picture. Yes, you read that right. Story time:  My wonderfully sweet and amazing husband and I decided we would go out to eat last night because our kiddo was at Grandma’s and sometimes it is nice to feel like adults who do adult things.  We sit down in a crowded restaurant and are having normal conversation, showing each other stuff on our phones, etc.  My mountain of food arrives (seriously, Cracker Barrel, if you put all of the ...

Welcome to Dead Pancreas Society!  The name of this blog came to me through an online conversation in which a fellow Type 1 Diabetic called for unity among the Dead Pancreas Society and I fell in love with it.  Maybe because Dead Poet Society is one of my favorite movies.  Maybe it's because I enjoy punny humor.  One thing is for sure is that I aim to be a blog where all things about diabetes (both types because we don't discriminate around here), both negative and positive, can be discussed honestly.  I hope to put forth my view in a supportive, yet humorous and sarcastic way.  Stick around, get to know me a bit better, and hopefully we learn some things about getting through this one finger prick at a time.  That being said, we have all encountered some really crappy things being said about us as diabetics and diabetes in general.  Nasty things, dumb things, and insensitive  things.  Some of it is naivety.  Some of it is gen...