I just had to write this post in my lunch break because it’s been distracting me from my work all morning. This comment actually outdoes the colostomy bag comment of 2008 I’m pleased to say (because that comment was made by a very dear friend of mine who was just being dopey and she was as upset about it as I was at the time).

I just met up with a rep from Animas because I’d enquired about looking at some alternative options for infusion sets. We went to a café down the road from my work (which will remain un-named). We were sitting there with our coffees plus a pile of different infusion sets of all colours and shapes and sizes, and a foam pad where she’d done a couple of demos and I’d done a couple of trials.

Then the café owner cleared a table next to us and stopped at our table on the way back inside to enquire what we were up to. When the rep explained this is equipment for type 1 diabetes the café owner started running her mouth…. I have to say the ignorance and insensitivity she displayed left me completely flummoxed, and for one of the few times in my life: speechless. In summary:

• The pump rep explained this was all demo stuff for insulin dependent diabetics.
• I looked at the café owner and said “I have diabetes”
• The café owner tells us her friend (a gay man in London apparently) has just been diagnosed with diabetes. He was outstandingly overweight and “of course got diabetes”
• The pump rep then butted in to say something along the lines of “that’s type 2 diabetes and yes it is often to do with diet and exercise. Type 1 however is an auto-immune disease where the body can’t produce insulin and it’s not to do with being overweight or having a bad diet”
• The café owner went on without even stopping to digest what the pump rep had to say, on a tirade about how this man had lost 20kgs which is “about three dress sizes” and that he had a long way to go. She then went on to laugh pre-emptively at her ‘funny’ joke: “I said to him – ‘you’ll probably end up getting an amputation!’ because that’s what seems to happen to diabetics, you’re always reading about it in the paper aren’t you”.
• The pump rep did a great job of deflecting the statement and once again trying to educate the woman: it doesn’t happen to all diabetics, not all diabetics have diabetes due to a fault of their own, people who don’t make an effort to control their diabetes can sometimes end up with amputations, but people like Nic here who are taking charge of their own condition will most likely be ok.

100 points to the pump rep. Nil points for the café owner. I refer to a statement previously made: if you don’t know anything about a subject, don’t give your ignorant opinions on it, thanks very much. It makes you wonder what awful sweeping statements she’s made about homosexuality to her poor gay friend in London (who had also lost his job because “he lives in the UK and they’re all losing their jobs aren’t they”). Grrrrrrrrr!