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Monday 23 February 2015

The Scream

All pumpers have a secret fear instilled upon us. A fear that one day, we may drop our pump in the toilet bowl.

Today, my fear came true. The clip lost its grip on my pants, and my pump took a dive straight down. I watched in horror as it fell. I might have screamed. My hands worked overtime in ultra-speed to grasp at the tubing. But it still went in for a short dip. In less than a second I had jerked it back up and rushed it over to the bathroom sink. I unclipped it from my site and set about rendering it emergency assistance.

I gently dabbed the water off, taking out the reservior and gel case. I then left it to dry on a towel for 5 minutes whilst I gathered together my entire stash of alcohol swabs. Whilst, thankfully, the toilet hadn't been used yet, my pump still went in the toilet, so I wasn't taking any chances. I carefully swabbed every single inch of my pump, clip and gel case with alcohol wipes. I changed out the reservoir and tubing for new ones.

I finished off by basically bathing in hand sanitiser.

I still felt dirty. I couldn't eat breakfast; I felt so physically ill. In a way, I was hoping for a button error or some other malfunction so I didn't have to clip it back onto me. I began imaging scenarios at my doctors office where he told me that I had aids now because of the short dip my pump took. Somehow I thought aids would be lying dormant in my toilet and would then inch its way up my pump tubing and into the site. Which I know is probably super duper 100% far fetched.

I wasn't even sure I could admit that it happened. Maybe I should just repress my memory of the incident?  Not to be melodramatic, but I wondered if I should join a support group for this. Or go to some counselling. I'm afraid I'll develop feelings of resentment towards Luna. It's probably my fault for calling it Luna. That chick has the worst luck.

I'll never speak of it again. One day I'll be at a diabetic meet-up, or conference or otherwise, and someone will mention their fear that this will happen. I'll catch another pumpers eye and we'll both know that this fear is real and warranted. But we'll never speak of it and will just continue our lives like it never happened.

I'm a 'pump-in-the-toilet' survivor. Look out for the movie deal.







Friday 20 February 2015

#effyourhealthstandards

Tess Munster somehow made it back to my newsfeed again today. I say again, because she's been there a good part of the past month.

For those who haven't a clue who I'm talking about, Tess Munster is a plus size model who recently got a large modelling contract.

I have no issues with plus size models. I think for the majority of the time, the term plus size is wildly inaccurate, because it basically just means 'average sized human being'. I don't own any fashion magazines and I have no idea what a Dolce and Gabbana is. I don't know fashion. I don't look at fashion. I shop at K-mart. That stuff is cheap and it fits over my butt. Like actually fits over it.

Kmart are pretty good on their advertising. I generally just see healthy looking men and women in their catalogues. In the last catalogue, a model had arm fat. And that's who we should be seeing. HEALTHY men and women in advertising.

Tess Munster is anything but healthy. I do have to give her some props. She is body confident.

Unfortunately she promotes a lifestyle to vulnerable girls who aren't body confident that tells them it's ok to become morbidly obese. She isn't someone who I would want an impressionable young teen to look up to. Neither are stick thin models, but they don't make my newsfeed.

Tess had a lot to do with #effyourbeautystandards. Thats a great movement. But she may as well add #effyourhealthstandards #dieyoung.

I have Type 1 Diabetes, an autoimmune condition that I could not have prevented no matter how hard I exercised or how well I ate. It hurts me so much to see people advocating for unhealthy lifestyle choices in the way that Tess Munster does. #effyourbeautystandards isn't about telling the media that we don't have to be stick thin, with huge boobs to be attractive anymore. It's now about my life, my body, I'll do what I want and what the hell is a carrot?

Tess Munster's social media pages makes being unhealthy look desirable. She's glamorous, eats what she wants wihtout caring and travels the world.  What she isn't sharing on her facebook, or instagram or whatever it is kids are logging into and looking at these days, is the statistics on health issues from morbid obesity. She isn't sharing when her doctors warn her about Type 2 Diabetes, or heart diseae, or cancer. She doesn't share her BMI, or pictures of small cuts that take twice as long to heal with poor circulation. She isn't able to take a picture of her insides and share her possibly hardened areries, or struggling organs with you. She doesn't tell you how long it takes her to walk up a set of stairs, or how much harder she has to breathe to do that.

She's a model. Hello photoshop. I wear a size 12 and I have cellulite galore. And stretch marks. And my curves are sometimes just lumps of fat and not really curves. Tess Munster does not appear to have these. Her curves are smooth, she has no cellulite and where are the stretch marks? At size 22, she has these. What happened to #effyourbeautystandards?

 I wish I could tell her exactly how much she does not want Type 2 Diabetes. Because it's not glamourous. Finding blood all over your hands/legs/face 5 minutes after a finger-prick isn't glamourous. Wincing in pain during needle isn't a great model face. Having to plan your life to a tee to include your diabetes would not make the jet-setting life very easy, I would imagine. It also might be hard to model with no legs. Just saying, as someone who has this secret fear about their diabetes.

I don't wish Tess ill. I don't hate Tess. I just think that Tess should appreciate that as someone who has such a large audience, she should take responsibility of that and pop up a picture of a healthy meal every so often. Or snap a pic mid-work out. Encourage people that you can still #effyourbeautystandards whilst being healthy, instead of using #effyourbeautfystandards to justify an unhealthy lifestyle.