SweetLifeStories Diabetes Blog

what feelings do other people experience when they’re introduced as “a diabetic” — or asked by a well-meaning friend or co-worker, “Should you be eating that . . . you know, since you’re diabetic?”

Here’s a poem shared by my friend Billy Brown, trying his best to live well with Type II diabetes, that will surely push the boundaries of people’s understanding of this disease and its impact on our psyches and lives!

   adjective or noun

           by Billy Brown

“a diabetic”

that’s what she said when

she introduced him

to her friends

no, not

“is diabetic”

nor

“has type two diabetes”

but

this is my husband William

he is

“a diabetic”

she “is”-ed him as if

she was defining who or what he was

as she might refer to

“a paraplegic” or

“a spastic” or

“an epileptic” . . .

(nothing personal

against all those people)

its just that he did not like

the sound of he is

“a diabetic”

as if he were personally responsible

for being criminally addicted to . . .

to . . . to . . . to . . . to

sugar . . .

a boyhood addiction

which any sensible responsible man

would, of course,

outgrow and therefore

he is not a sensible responsible man

but rather an un-self-controlled freak of nature

who should be put on display in a medical zoo

“a diabetic”

Feed for this entry. Leave a response, or trackback from your own site.