At 6:30 pm, D and I sat down to watch the CBS Evening News as we most often do. In the middle of the headlines/teasers for the night's stories was something close to the following: surgery can cure diabetes. D actually stood up and raised his hands in the "touchdown" formation. Being Ms. Skeptic, I said, "Type 1 or Type 2?" There may have been an expletive in there; I can't quite recall.
Needless to say, the segment was on gastric bypass/ gastric sleeve surgery intended for people with Type 2 diabetes, or PWD2. As a mother of a six-year-old PWD1 and wife of a forty-year-old PWD1, I am up to here with the general conception that diabetes is ONE disease.
It is most assuredly not.
Type 2 diabetes can sometimes be prevented or even reversed. Type 2 diabetics are typically overweight or even obese. Type 2 diabetics are not typically insulin dependent.
Type 1 diabetes cannot be prevented. Type 1 diabetics can be any size person. Most that I know are in enviable shape. Type 1 diabetics are insulin dependent.
Type 1 diabetics will DIE if they do not have their insulin.
Type 1 diabetes cannot be controlled by "diet and exercise."
Why does this piss me off so much? Because when a reputable news source headlines their nightly news with a "surgical cure for diabetes," I want to see an artificial pancreas that works. I want to see FDA approval of islet cell transplants. I want to see my daughter's stem cells, which we pay to have stored each year, cure her.
I don't want to see her lose the feeling in her fingertips because she has tested her blood sugar for thirty years. I don't want her to take one more effing shot.
So please, if I may be so bold, be precise with your words. 1 or 2.