Number 6 - Injecting in restaurants

This is a topic that has raised its head many, many times in the forum’s history, but I chose this one particular post because it also spawned many other discussions at the time, and still has echoes in new threads nearly two years after it appeared! The premise was this – should a person who needs to inject insulin prior to eating in a public place vacate their table and find some hidden, possibly unhygienic place like a toilet to perform the deed in order to protect the imagined sensitivities of the general populace? Or should they discreetly inject without fuss, and be happy to explain should anyone question what they were doing?

Although chiefly a concern of those who actually have to inject insulin before eating, it also brought into the debate how a diabetic who doesn’t should regard it in public, and also how Diabetes UK’s own Balance magazine should provoke the debate. In this instance, a letter by a Type 2, non-injecting ex-nurse from Birkenhead who had written to Balance complaining about how ‘disgusting’ injecting in public was. The response was uproar – firstly that Balance should publish such a letter and also that an ‘ex-nurse’ who was diabetic herself should have written in such insulting and inflammatory language. The Balance editor hid behind the disclaimer and the argument that it ‘stimulated discussion’, but compounded the problem by publishing a follow-up letter in subsequent issues.

This was, in my opinion and that of many other members of the forum, a low-point for Balance, as many questioned whether they wanted to continue supporting an organisation that appeared to wilfully overlook the concerns of its members. My own response was in verse in ‘Nursing 101’ and the sequel ‘Nurse Unbalanced’, and also provided more rich pickings for ‘Disgusted Nurse Gets Just Desserts’, so I have to admit that our errant nurse did inspire me quite a bit! The topic was further explored when a news story in a Wigan newspaper related how one customer had complained that injecting in a restaurant in front of his children was ‘worse than farting’ – hence my poem ‘Farts versus Injections’. Thankfully, Balance has improved a great deal since this debacle.

I’m sure this topic will keep on appearing until we are all cured, or at the very least have pumps!

Post link: http://www.diabetessupport.co.uk/boards/showthread.php?t=881