Several of the posts coming back from the Children With Diabetes annual Friends for Life conference (FFL) have likened this gathering of beta-less buddies to a traveling circus, a family reunion, and the sitcom Cheers, in whose eponymous bar "everybody knows your name" -- except that in the case of FFL, "everybody knows what it's like to live with type 1 diabetes". The effect, even without the Disneyification (FFL is always held at Disney World), is a Magic Kingdom of Diabetes. It makes sense: the event promoters are (and need to be) familiar with the condition, and the property managers need to be aware of -- and capable of handling -- a large, temporary influx of people who all have the same, or similar, "special needs". It's kind of like ASL Weekend at the Renaissance Faire, only with glucose tabs and Diet Coke instead of sign interpreters and a one-page on signing Period greetings and exclamations. Add to that the usual plethora of conference swag, and I can certainly understand the feeling of Christmas. 

That sense of community, along with announcements of a diabetic Disney character and an upcoming series of books aimed at 'tweens-and-'teens with diabetes, reminds me of something I started sketching out some months ago. Inspired by H.G. Wells' story, The Country of the Blind, I wondered what a country would look like in which everyone had, or was certain to develop, type 1 diabetes. Some things would seem obvious -- such as universal access to diabetes supplies, medications, and technology, and all schoolteachers being well-versed in diabetes care and empowered to assist their students. Others might be less so: would someone whose diabetes had not yet triggered be looked down upon? Would doctors try to induce diabetes surgically in those cases, or would there be social pressure to leave the country? How would that society avoid the high cost -- in medical care, lives, and quality of life -- of DKA, especially pre-diagnosis?

Like any good science-fiction/fantasy fan, I started out by sketching the parameters of this idealized fantasy "country". In The Country of the Blind, people were born without eyes, just flesh covering where eyeballs had ceased functioning generations before. When the sighted traveler visits, they can understand none of his vision-related vocabulary (eyes, color, sight, light and dark, visually-based idioms like "I'll be seeing you" or "See you soon") and believe him to be insane. In Diabetia, by contrast, everyone starts off euglycemic (unless they're prenatally diabetic), so the failure of one's beta cells has to be more like losing one's baby teeth or hitting puberty. And while, at least in the initial thought experiment, Diabetia is a distinct nation to which immigration (and from which emigration) is possible, the social and medical implications of either are strikingly different from those of the modern world.

Right now, Diabetia exists in about three pages of descriptive text, describing a few basic aspects of how I think such a world would be structured. There's a lot I left out: government control, for one thing, and employment issues, for another. While there are situational descriptions, there are no characters and no stories; my sketch comes closer to the description of the Nacirema, without the post-realization humor. I'm not sure it's in me to write the stories, though they are what would bring this world alive. And I'm not sure where to put my skeletal structure, that it might be shared with others and used as a starting point for discussion and storytelling. There are items in this universe that remind me more of Orwell (1984, Animal Farm) than Wells, more of the Borg and Brave New World than Walden Two... and that may be the way this sort of world would have to be. Then again, maybe someone else has another viewpoint, another idea, and ways in which Diabetia could prevent the sort of authoritarian loss of individuality that might result if some of my premises were adopted.

Have you ever used diabetes as a basis for science fiction or fantasy? If so, have you published your writing? If not, why not? Do we need a site for writers of diabetes-inspired fiction and fantasy?