Living with Type 2 Diabetes: Thankful to Be a Type 2 Diabetic

I’ve come to realize that being a Type 2 diabetic really isn’t that bad, when compared to a Type I diabetic.  Sure I’ve heard of the issues that Type I diabetics have but it wasn’t until I recently met a Type 1 that I realized how much easier it s for me to manage my type 2 diabetes..

While helping a neighbor move, I noticed piles of empty cotton candy containers and bags of candy throughout the house.  I figured that someone in the house had a serious sweet tooth but I soon learned the truth.  The neighbor was a Type I diabetic and was almost constantly offering me cookies, sweet tarts, cotton candy, and other things I didn’t think a diabetic was supposed to have.  I was surprised to learn that unlike me, a Type 2, the Type I had trouble keeping his glucose levels elevated.  “Anyone besides me have a 50 blood sugar level?” he’d jokingly ask as he’d check his glucometer and offered up sugar cookies to everyone.

I kept quiet as a church mouse as to my diabetic status but finally I came clean with him and told him that I was a Type 2.  It was ironic how different we were.  Here I was trying to keep my blood sugar down, and here he was trying to keep his up.  Twenty minutes later he’d come around again, glassy eyed, offering gummy bears.  An hour later, he was offering cotton candy.  I told him that I’d be dead if I hung around him too long because I only had so much resistance in me and before I would start munching on cotton candy.

For him it was a constant struggle.  He had to closely monitor his activity level because if he exerted too much energy, he’d be out cold.   Seeing the stark differences between him and myself was amazing but it made me thankful that I had a disease that I could control.

When you look at it, Type 2’s is the lesser of two evils and I am thankful to be a Type 2.