Define Normal

Italian book of monsters from 1618.

I can’t say how other people felt when they were diagnosed with Type I Diabetes, but for a long time I felt like I would never be normal again. All of a sudden, I needed to check my blood for sugar and I needed to take shots and carry an emergency kit around if I happened to crash really bad. The school nurse had to send notes to all my teachers and coaches warning them that I wasn't like the other kids. It wasn't as bad as the guy in the picture above, but I certainly wasn't normal anymore.

I remember one time early on in my disease, a doctor tried to scare me into monitoring my sugars more closely. He told me point blank, “Everything is different now. You have diabetes and you need to accept it for what it is. Stop thinking you're normal”...


Harsh. What a terrible thing to say to a 16 year old trying to fit into the classroom. I wanted so badly to be ordinary, maybe even extraordinary, but not…. “different”. Different means you're strange and strange means you're eating lunch alone and there’s not a lot worse in high school life than not having someone to laugh with about eating crummy burnt cafeteria pizza. Alone and different.

However, I survived high school unscathed and even went through college without much of a problem. I turned it into a joke or a spectacle. It was a great coping device to actually make more friends than if I didn't have diabetes. In the long run, diabetes was a terrible enemy, but in the moment I used the novelty of test strips and syringes to impress people and draw laughs.

I had problems along the way. But, I didn't really have someone to talk to seriously about my diabetes because I had spent so much time mocking the disease that it felt like the boy crying wolf. I didn't want to complain and draw attention like I had in the past. I tried to stay with the crowd and pose as normal as possible.

I finally finished school and stopped moving from university to university. When I settled at my job, I met some great doctors and began a real open dialogue. I also started opening up in online forums talking to other diabetics. To my surprise, I found out that I am in fact a very normal diabetic with very normal problems and feelings. I found a treasure trove of knowledge among these great people and slowly the feeling of being different wore off.

I discovered that the root of my problem was in my definition of “normal”. My realization started when I was arguing with my primary care doctor about blood pressure medicines. I was angry that normal healthy people don’t need medications and here I was talking to this guy about adding a second or even third medication onto my already existing insulin regiment. NO WAY!

I’ll try to paraphrase what he said because it was very important to me.
He said, “Everyone has something to deal with… EVERYONE. For some people its ulcers, some people are depressed or scarred; some people deal with arthritis or psoriasis. But you… you have diabetes. And that’s OK, but you can’t ignore the problem you’re dealing with. I’m not prescribing medications because I don’t care and just want your appointment to be over. I’m talking with you about medication because this problem will get worse if we don’t fix it.”

That was the beginning of my realization that normal is a very subjective term. To this day, I don’t think I have ever met a perfectly “normal” person. I think I was lucky to have had that conservation with my doctor and I think that it is a conversation patients should hear more often. Unfortunately, sometimes the doctors that are supposed to be helping people are ostracizing their patients instead. Somehow the patient-doctor dialogue starts to feel like a blame game of whose fault it is that the numbers aren’t “normal” and patient feels supremely guilty.

I’m not suggesting that a HA1C of 12.0 is OK or normal or healthy. But I am suggesting that if a doctor makes it seem that everyone in the world except you is doing just fine, it may make it harder for you to fight that battle. Compassion and understanding are necessary to let the patient know that it is OK if something is not “normal” because there are many people with the same problem and that you can overcome that problem with help from your doctor.

I’m not normal and I don’t think I ever will be, but now I’m OK with saying that out loud. I work toward my goals knowing that there are many people with my same problems willing to help. And I strive to be happy and healthy knowing that normal just isn’t normal for me.