Last night my family and I went over to my cousin's house for dinner. Her dad, my uncle, was in town from Texas so we wanted to visit with him before he left. Our other cousin was there with her kids and we had a really lovely dinner.

After dinner my uncle was asking me about my Diabetes and how my health was. I told him that I had been taking care of myself much more then I used to and that I checked my BG six to eight times a day. He asked me if I was still smoking since he is a smoker and this was a bond we used to have. I told him that I did quit because I do not want to lose my toes. He looked at me funny and I explained that smoking constricts blood vessels which make it more difficult for blood to circulate properly and get to our extremities.

At this point my cousin chimes in and says, "Well if you did lose any toes you could save on pedicures!"

The room got quiet. I felt food start to rise up in my stomach as my face got hot. I knew smarting off, which I really badly wanted to do, would not be productive so I just calmly said, "I don't think that's funny. It is a serious fear of mine."

She said, "That is what my father in law used to say. He only had two toes and would say 'I only have to pay 20% of the cost for a pedicure.'" She laughs.

My wife responds with, "That was his sense of humor. That is how he dealt with it. It's different when you are trying to avoid it."

My other cousin said, "Well, he lived as if he didn't have diabetes which is why he died when he was forty something. And with only one leg."

The first cousin said, "Yeah he used to always say, 'lets eat at IHOP!'"

At this point I could not decide if I was going to scream or swear or just storm out. So I said, "Please, anyone, change the subject. I do not want to talk about diabetes anymore. PLEASE!" And that was it.

The first thing I thought as I left was how sharing your fears about diabetes may not always be as great as I would like to think it should be.


All of us deal with our disease in different ways. All are okay for ourselves but not always for each other. I wish people would be sensitive to that. Had the father-in-law been in the room saying these things, it would have been different. I would have understood.


Sometimes wanting to get things out and share them does not work. Sometimes it backfires.