How often has this question been debated?

Olivia doesn't care what she's called. She calls herself diabetic often. I'm the one with the issue. I always say that she has diabetes. To me, calling her a diabetic makes her only her disease.

On dLife a couple of weeks ago, Jim Turner said that he was always a diabetic, that diabetes was what he thought about, what was going on in the background all the time, no matter what else he was doing. He was, first and foremost, a diabetic.

I can understand that thought process, but I don't agree with it. Yes, diabetes takes up a lot of space in the brain and it's not something that can be shoved aside and forgotten. You always have to take it into consideration. But you take it into consideration along side your life. Your life as a person. A person with diabetes, yes, but a person with a life. A person who is a sister, daughter, student, drama queen and soccer player as well as a person with diabetes.

Maybe it's different for me because I'm not the one with diabetes. Maybe I'm the one that's too sensitive about not wanting my child defined by her disease. To me, that's what the word diabetic is: It's a label that says, "I am this disease." I don't want anyone giving my child that narrow definition.