“I wear yellow on Thursdays.”
As many of you know (hopefully), I have type 1 diabetes. Today, I will tell a story of what Neon said to me at Sarah senior showcase. But first, a short explanation so you don’t mix up the different types of diabetes.
Type 1 diabetes, aka juvenile diabetes, usually occurs when you are a child. Hence the nickname, juvenile diabetes. Man I really want to make a joke but I don’t think Dr A would let me post it so I’ll slightly tell it. Dream. Alright, t1d occurs when the body’s immune system attacks the insulin producing beta cells in the pancreas causing it to not make insulin. From my understanding (i’ve had t1d for over 8 years you can trust me) sometimes the immune system doesn’t kill all of the insulin cells so your body will make little to no insulin. Depending on the amount of living insulin cells. T1d is permanent and there is no cure. I remember when I was first diagnosed on January 29, 2016, I was told not to worry because there would be a cure in about four years. Those four years came and went with no cure. Then another four years came and went without a cure. Now I’m on the next four years lol. Anyway, t1d is usually genetic meaning it runs in the family. You can also get sick and basically your immune system gets confused and thinks your insulin cells are bad. Neither of those happened for me. It was just a fluke that I got t1d. Your diet and exercise habits cannot at all whatsoever cause you to have type 1 diabetes. Now onto type 2 diabetes.
I don’t know much about type 2 diabetes but I’ll do my best to explain it. Basically (from my understanding but I dont have the disease so take what I’m saying with about 4.2oz of salt) type 2 diabetes usually occurs in adulthood from poor diet and exercise. This is not always the case. Sometimes you can be the healthiest person in the world and still develop type 2 diabetes because it can also be a genetic factor (meaning it runs in the family). It is also not permanent. WIth proper dieting and exercise, you can get rid of it.
A lot of diabetics (mainly t1) complain that t1 and t2 should have different names because of how different they are. They claim that they are two completely different diseases and are not at all similar. I agree and disagree at the same time. Both types are in the endocrine family and they both have to do with your pancreas. I do agree that the names are too similar and should be different. I’ve talked to a lot of type 2 diabetics and when they find out i have t1, they’re like “hey i have diabetes!” When I ask them which type, they say they don’t know. In my experience, if you don’t know what type of diabetes you have, you’re usually type 2. Ok, enough with the explanations and onto the story.
I was at Sarah’s senior showcase and Neon was eating some sort of cookie. I asked them what it tasted like because I had never had one before. They looked at me and said, “diabetes.” I looked at them with a surprised look on my face as their eyes widened in horror and they started apologizing. To be fair, it was really funny. We both started laughing and they fell to the floor because they were laughing so hard.
Fun Fact: There is also a kind of diabetes called type 1.5 diabetes. This occurs when an adult is diagnosed with type 1 diabetes. There’s type 3 diabetes which is linked to Alzheimer’s or something. I don’t really know. I mainly only know about t1.
Bro I got a whole medical lesson reading this. I genuinely love consuming new info.