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Nadine Pedersen, mother of a teenager with type 1 diabetes, is entrusted to the CBC's The Early Edition, which aimed to break the stereotypes surrounding the disease and put a term to jokes about sugar.
I was driving my 13-year-old son, Hudson, who lives with type 1 diabetes, to school Wednesday morning when we heard a rumor on CBC radio that eating Diwali sweets could cause diabetes .
Hudson and I looked at each other and groaned because such comments are so common and so low.
This is a common mistake, as when someone makes a joke uninformed. It just makes you sigh.– Hudson Carpenter
Since Hudson was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes at the age of eight, we have met people who think that his health condition is the result of a poor diet.
In fact, type 1 diabetes is not related to diet. It is an incurable, life-threatening and extremely complex immune system disorder.
People develop type 1 diabetes after their immune system attacks and destroys insulin-producing cells in the pancreas. Without insulin, people die because their bodies are unable to convert food into energy.
Live with type 1
To survive, Hudson must prick his fingers and do blood tests several times a day.
It is connected to an insulin pump 24 hours a day and a continuous blood glucose meter is attached to the arm.
Hudson has to calculate carbohydrates in every thing he puts in his mouth to give himself the right dose of insulin.
We often wake up in the middle of the night to try to prevent hypoglycemia or hyperglycemia – one or the other that can be fatal.
It's a bit scary because you could fall asleep and never wake up and it's every night.– Hudson Carpenter
On one of the social networking accounts that I run to educate the public about diabetes, I sometimes publish pictures of blue candles.
These candles mark the death of children who have died of diabetes. Sometimes these children die of hypoglycemia in the middle of the night. Other times, it is because their symptoms of type 1 diabetes are misdiagnosed as the flu.
These children end up falling into a coma and never get out of it.
As you can imagine, these stories are not very funny.
Reinforce disinformation
People make jokes about diabetes by reflex, without really thinking about what they say.
They do not realize that by making these jokes, they perpetuate the misinformation about a really complex and difficult disease.
Some people like to joke about diabetes because they badociate type 2 diabetes with being overweight – and hypocrisy is one of the last areas where people seem to think it's okay to laugh and to make fun of others.
Obviously, this is also unacceptable. It's also inaccurate – people can be thin and active while developing type 2 diabetes.
It is time to break with the stereotypes surrounding diabetes.
Insensitive comments and jokes about diabetes are extremely common in our society. When you listen to them, you start to notice them.
Hudson and I notice them all the time.
With files from the first edition
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