Jennifer: My most embarrassing type 1 diabetic (T1D) moment was when I was on a first date. It was a dinner date and our food had just arrived and I was priming my pen to bolus before eating. Well, I didn’t really look where I was priming and a huge amount of insulin sprayed out all over my date’s meal. We both watched it squirt all over his plate in slow motion—I was mortified. After apologizing, profusely, I had to explain to him that nothing would happen to him and he wouldn’t taste it. It turned out to be a good ice-breaker into my having T1D though!
Jillian: When I was in high school, a bunch of my friends and of course cute boys wanted to hang out at the park after school. I was so excited to finally hang with my school crush but, that also came at a cost: an embarrassing T1D moment for me. We were at my friend’s house which backed up to the school park and they had a 6-foot tall fence we would have to climb over to get to the park. So of course everyone was hopping over the fence, then it was my turn! Eeeeek! I finally get the courage to attempt this climb, then all of a sudden, I’m STUCK! Yep, you guessed it—my pump tubing hooked on the top of the fence! I was hanging by my pump tubing! I felt humiliated. I was trying to “fit in,” but instead felt super uncomfortable and just wanting to go home. I then realized I could go home and be myself, or laugh it off and just make a good afternoon with my friends, and school crush. So that’s what I did. Yes, it was embarrassing, but T1D embarrassing moments happen! Let’s just say, I haven’t climbed a fence since.
Michelle: One time I was giving myself insulin in my cousin’s car. After I injected, I pulled the needle out, and it turned out to be an unexpected bleeder! Blood squirted onto her fabric seats from my leg. But I overcame it because I was lucky enough to be surrounded by people who were supportive of everything I had to do to manage my disease. Make sure your inner circle is full of people who lift you up and do whatever they can not to make you feel embarrassed! If someone isn’t supportive or makes you feel bad or guilty about your diabetes, they don’t belong in your inner circle! Find your tribe of people who don’t mind if you bleed on their car and love them hard.
Stephanie: My most embarrassing T1D moment was during my first college musical. I was the only freshman on the lighting team for this show, and it was really busy for a solid month to make this show happen. I did school things during the daytime and spent five or more hours working in the theater every night. During one of the weeks of tech, I needed to change my pump site during theater time, but I hadn’t told anyone on the lighting team that I had diabetes. Even though I am a fairly public advocate today, I did not readily tell people I have diabetes until I was part of Beyond Type Run in 2017. Especially in college, I was very private about my T1D. I think I said something like, “I’ll be right back; I need to go get my insulin” to our lighting designer who was also a student, and he looked really surprised and then asked if I needed the banana in his backpack. I don’t remember how I declined the banana, but I went to my dorm to handle my health and was back to hanging lights very quickly. I did have a deeper conversation with him about what T1D meant at some point when I didn’t have an immediate need, but that banana moment has stuck with me. Even though I was embarrassed that I needed to say something diabetes-related to someone I did not know well, it wasn’t a big deal because I didn’t make it a big deal, and other than the initial surprise nobody else made a big deal of it either.
