So, after 40 years of following the first rule of T1D Club: Don’t talk about T1D, and disseminating the information that I live with this condition on a need-to-know basis only, this has been an emotionally challenging week for me. ‘Coming out’ as a person living with T1D in a very public way, using my August 14 gig as a vehicle to end the secrecy and raise awareness feels terrifying.
What will people think of me now? What will the reaction be? The reason I went underground in the first place was to avoid dealing with people’s adverse reactions to finding out:
The uneducated, unsophisticated, unsolicited and dangerous healthcare advice (“Don’t eat anything with gluten”; “Stop eating any carbohydrates”; “Take (choose one: garlic/vitamin E/Omega 3/ St. John’s Wort) supplements and you won’t need insulin”; “You aren’t allowed to have sugar, so I’m not going to give you that orange juice you just asked me for, even if you say you are having an insulin reaction”; and so on, ad nauseum);
The fear and exclusion: (“Lynda can’t come to the sleepover because she might die in the night and spoil the party”; “I (teacher) can’t possibly take Lynda on the field trip; I have 20 teenagers to watch and I’m not a doctor”; “You are diabetic? Oh, sorry, we already (choose one: filled the position/rented the apartment)”;
I want to say to the world: We are here. We walk among you, undetected and overachieving because we have to work hard to be ‘normal’. But we are tough. And smart. And tough and smart beats ‘normal’ any day. You don’t know our reality, don’t understand what it’s like to be like us. So just let us be. Just let us be and watch what we can achieve. We will surprise you.
- More from Lynda Covello
-
Trickster, Dancer, Healer: Life Lessons in Chronic Medical Condition Management
I’ve checked my wireless continuous glucose monitor and adjusted the basal insulin rate on my pump accordingly for the activity level that I anticipate over the next 2 hours. I change from my running shoes into my weathered, muddy barn boots, grab the halter, a lead, a couple of treats and a dressage whip. The sky is silver-gray this morning as I approach the gate to the paddock, and the ground is wet. I call his name and he lifts his big white head and turns it to face me. The rest of him doesn’t move, just that long sinuous Read More…
Tagged Under: animals, chronic, diabetes, healer, lessons, lynda covello, management, trickster, Type 1 -
Medical Residents and Type 1 Diabetes: You Can’t Help, But Please Do No Harm
Over the past 41 years of living with Type 1 Diabetes, I have met a lot of medical Residents: doctors who have completed their initial training, but are now doing further study on the road to becoming specialists – basically, newly-minted GPs with aspirations of greater things. Because my medical team has always been situated in or associated with teaching hospitals, Residents are part of the territory. I try to maintain an open mind and a positive attitude whenever I am told that a Resident is studying with my team and asked if I would mind if he or she Read More…
Tagged Under: attitude, communication, Damage, diabetes, doctor patient relationship, lynda covello, residents, T1D, Type 1 -
Canadian Women Changing Healthcare
I happened to catch an episode of the CNN series “The Sixties” which featured the rise of the feminist movement. It caught my immediate attention as we here at Patient Commando were hard at work preparing our 2nd Annual Canadian Women Changing Healthcare. It had escaped my memory that in my lifetime there was a time when there were quotas on the spaces available to women in medical, dental and law schools. There was a time when airline stewardesses had to be single, with soft hands and were forced to retire at the age of 32. There was a time Read More…
Tagged Under: andrea shewchuk, Canadian Women Changing Healthcare, Carmen Wyton, Dawn Richards, Dianne Carmichael, Jodeme Goldhar, Liz Rice, lynda covello, Marlene Grass, Michele Hepburn, Miriam Kaufman, Nicki Kahnamoui, Sandy Smeenk, Sherry Dupuis, yael cohen -
Three A.M. Thoughts: ‘Doctor’s Orders’
It is a cultural artifact that we regard medical professionals as authority figures. We expect them to command us and we are expected to obey. Hence the phrase: 'doctor’s orders’. This relationship does not work for Type 1 Diabetes. It infantilizes the patient, which is the worst possible outcome. A person living with Type 1 needs a team of professional health care providers (endocrinologists, opthamologists, general practitioners, nurses, dietitions, psychologists, social workers, diabetes educators) to help with management of the condition. But the patient needs to be the Captain of that team. Healthcare providers should be trusted advisors, not authority Read More…
Tagged Under: collaboration, control, diabetes, lynda covello, relationships, T1D, teamwork -
Lost in Transition
I was diagnosed with T1D at the age of 14 and a half, just before I was about to start high school in the fall of 1973. I spent August 29th in a ketoacidotic coma and most of September in hospital recovering and learning how to give myself needles. There were no doctors in Thunder Bay at that time who had the necessary expertise to help me manage my condition, and the nurses, in my experience, were often dangerously misinformed. It was rough going, and the attitude was: try this and see, try that and see. Bring her to Emerg Read More…
Tagged Under: diabetes, lost, lynda covello, T1D, TOC, Transition of Care, Type 1 -
Coming Out
So, after 40 years of following the first rule of T1D Club: Don’t talk about T1D, and disseminating the information that I live with this condition on a need-to-know basis only, this has been an emotionally challenging week for me. ‘Coming out’ as a person living with T1D in a very public way, using my August 14 gig as a vehicle to end the secrecy and raise awareness feels terrifying. What will people think of me now? What will the reaction be? The reason I went underground in the first place was to avoid dealing with people’s adverse reactions Read More…
Tagged Under: diabetes, disclosure, fear, lynda covello, reaction, secrets, T1D, Type 1 -
Still Standing on my Original Two Feet
August 29 – My Coma Day August 29, 2013, is the 40th anniversary of my Coma Day -- the day I spent in a coma while my doctors tried to figure out what was wrong with me. Turned out it was Type 1 Diabetes, and they were able to bring me back to consciousness the next day. Every year on that day, I celebrate another year of surviving and thriving in spite of all the dire predictions I was given by the medical community during my slow, painful progress back to a point where I could be released from hospital Read More…
Tagged Under: coma, diabetes, experience, forty, Living, lynda covello, music, normal, Type 1, Well