Recently various petitions have been circulating the Diabetes Online Community, so today let’s pretend to write our own. Tell us who you would write the petition to – a person, an organization, even an object (animate or inanimate) – get creative!! What are you trying to change and what have you experienced that makes you want this change?

Whew! I can think of about 4 million petitions I’d like to write, but they can just about all be summed up by one topic: stop making a business out of my disease and it’s [potential] complications, and cure it. It’s disheartening when I read facts about how much money is spent on diabetes in the United States each year, when there are so many more productive ways that we could be spending research dollars. I wish there weren’t so many “politics, who knows who involved,” and it was more “bare bones, let’s get this done.” Maybe it is that way and I’m just not aware, but I don’t think so.

There are other petitions I’d like to write, to my devices or the drug I use to keep me alive. In general I am very thankful for the technology which enables me to manage my diabetes in a more healthy way, but it’s not like I’m dying to wear medical devices attached to me and take crappy drugs, therefore, another petition I’d like to write is to dear old insulin:

Dear Insulin,

First of all, I’d like to thank you for keeping me alive. While I appreciate (obviously) that you allow me to use you to stay alive, you kind of suck and should be further advanced than you are. You haven’t changed much, and now is the time. Managing diabetes is difficult enough, but when I have to take you [insulin] an hour and 15 minutes prior to eating a banana-it’s effing annoying and makes managing diabetes even more burdensome. I like bananas and potassium, just let me eat the damn thing! And then, dear insulin, where do you go when you don’t work? Are you lazy, are you crystallized in my pump site, are you just hanging out in scar tissue, or can you STEP IT UP FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THINGS DIABETES, I’M HUNGRY? And why do you sometimes work so well? Also, why are you only good for 28 days? You have no idea what a nightmare this is for refills, insurance hassles, pharmacists that don’t understand how to fill insulin prescriptions, etc.

Seriously, insulin, you’re slow, inconsistent, and just down right annoying! I petition to improve you.

Sincerely,

Hungry Type 1