I’m partaking in this year’s Diabetes Blog Week. Each post this week will be based on a pre-determined prompt constructed by Karen over at Bittersweet Diabetes. You can participate by visiting her website.

The Blame Game – Wednesday 5/17

Having diabetes often makes a visit to the doctor a dreaded experience, as there is invariably bad news of one kind or another.  And sometimes the way the doctor talks to you can leave you feeling like you’re at fault.  Or maybe you have a fantastic healthcare team, but have experienced blame and judgment from someone else in your life – friend, loved one, complete stranger.  Think about a particularly bad instance, how that person talked to you, the words they used and the conversation you had.  Now, the game part.  Let’s turn this around.  If you could turn that person into a puppet, what would you have them say that would leave you feeling empowered and good about yourself?   Let’s help teach people how to support us, rather than blame us!  (Thank you, Brian, for inspiring this topic.)

---

I feel like this topic could be an extension of yesterday’s post. After all, isn’t the crux of the whole healthcare debate whether or not we made some bad life choice and therefore got diabetes as a result? The moment I mention I have diabetes, the questions start. Is it bad? Can you eat that? Why don’t you just exercise more? Why aren’t you fat?

The questions were more prevalent when I was pregnant with Bean. I remember going to an open interview event for local doulas. By the time we got to the meet and greet portion of the afternoon, I experienced a whole lot of side-eyes and strange questions from a group of women supposedly interested in lifting each other up. This wasn’t to say all of them were like this – the two who had worked with T1 patients at my hospital just weren’t available on my due date.

I had meet & greets awkwardly cut off because I was apparently delivering at the wrong hospital in the area (it has a level 4 neonatal unit and is one of the best children’s hospitals). I wasn’t really high-risk (pretty sure diabetes classifies you as a high-risk pregnancy). I probably didn’t love my MFM and I should try a family practice physician instead (um, no, I love my MFM because she lets me do what I want and family practice would just refer me there anyway). Oh, and the kicker – is my child going to have diabetes too? (Sigh, no. She has just as much of a chance of developing it as your children do.)

Needless to say, I didn’t hire a doula and the experience soured me to ever seeking out their services for any future pregnancies. There isn’t anything wrong with wanting to use a doula during the birth process, but I didn’t see how she could have helped me in my unique situation. You could see it during the meet and greets; the minute I mentioned I had a high-risk pregnancy, the shields went up.

I don’t blame them for being scared to take me on as a client, but I would have appreciated the honesty over the judgment. A simple, hey, y’know, not sure if I’m the gal to work with you because I don’t know a whole lot about your condition would have worked better than doubting I actually had a condition.

Also, now I have this song stuck in my head…