The following letter was published in the Idaho State Journal in the Letters to the Editor section on October 25, 2009. Complaint: On Oct. 3, myself and my girlfriend were eating lunch at Burger King. A family came in and sat across the aisle from us. While the father was ordering food, we were shocked and appalled to see a boy inject himself with whatever medication, in front of God and everybody all while sitting at the table. We found this extremely offensive. That sort of business should be done in private. How about a little respect for those around you. Other than the obvious fact that it’s not sanitary for those who use the table next, you have no idea how something like that can affect people. People go through a lot in their life and things like that may bring up certain feelings and memories best forgotten. I would like to thank those that day for totally ruining my meal. From the other d-blogs out there I’ve read that this gem of a comment came from a Mr. Wallace Barber. I read about this at http://diabetesaliciousness.blogspot.com/ and there are many other blogs with similar posts. This is my response: Mr. Barber, Your letter to the editor published on October 25 was one of the most uneducated, ignorant, moronic letters I have ever read. From the explanation in your letter I would assume that this young boy has Type 1 Diabetes. It is because of people like you that many young Type 1 Diabetics are ashamed of their disease. Luckily I have never been ashamed of my disease. I thank God every day that my parents didn’t hide my disease in a restaurant’s restroom just to make people like you more comfortable. Yes, there were times we would quickly dart to the restroom to check my blood sugar and inject insulin. But those times were the exception, not the rule. I distinctly remember attending a Nebraska Cornhusker football game that ran into my meal time. At the time I was on a strict NPH and regular insulin regimen that required specific food exchanges at specific times or extreme low blood sugar could occur. Now, I don’t expect you to know anything about that as you are so ignorant. Ah, but I digress. Why would my mom and I leave a game during the fourth quarter to hide in a filthy stadium restroom to check my blood sugar and give myself an injection of insulin? We did not leave. I poked my finger and injected insulin in front of 70,000+ people in Memorial Stadium in Lincoln, Nebraska. There was nothing I could’ve done to prevent this disease. Nothing. When I was three years old the beta cells in my pancreas quit producing insulin. Every single day since December 16, 1991 I have had to inject myself with insulin just to stay alive. I didn’t ask for this. But I am living my best with this chronic disease. And I will continue to live like this until there is a cure. Mr. Barber, I hope that you never have a friend or family member diagnosed with this disease. I wouldn’t wish it upon my worst enemy. But I do hope you do something about your ignorance. Unlike diabetes, there’s a cure for that: education. Kay Ritzdorf Omaha, Nebraska If you would like to respond it can be done here: http://www.idahostatejournal.com/service/editor.html I received this email shortly after submitting my letter to the editor: Kay, We’re no longer accepting letters on Mr. Barber. We’ve gotten a ton already and feel like all the letters are just repeating the same thing. We might do a story on the controversy. Mr. Barber upset a lot of people, nationwide. Ian Fennell, Idaho State Journal editor Just repeating the same thing? Yeah, kind of like the blood sugar checks and insulin injections/pump changes that I, and all other diabetics, repeat every day. I guess Mr. Barber has an ignorant companion in Mr. Fennell.
I added my comments as well. The letter was not permitted, for some reason. They must have a T1 filter up in hopes of silencing the responses. I put my response below:
If the advertisement in your above notice is correct, then you will welcome my response as a "mainstay of the press" and refrain from dismissing it. There is a population that has been bullied by society for too long, and we are sick of it. We suffer from an autoimmune disorder. We have to take injections of insulin every day, whether we eat or not. One measure of intelligence is the ability to adapt to circumstances outside of one's normal sphere of understanding. Thus, you could look at us, people with Type 1, as measures of an outer world's intelligence. I would rather live in a world which encourages its citizens to be smart enough to adapt to unknown circumstances than one in which a grown adult man can sneer at a young child taking one of countless shots to survive. Which world would you prefer to live in? That young man, along with many other people, takes insulin to live, and not because he ate too much. People with MS are not blamed or shamed for their needs; neither should a person who has an autoimmune disorder. This is not merely an issue about insulin or Type 1. This is about what sort of world we want to, as a society, encourage to exist. Narcissism is a dangerous precedent, one which extracts a heavy price from society.
urghhh reading that really annoyed me when i didnt have a pump i would always ingect in burger king ..its weird cause thats one of the places i felt like i didnt need to go to the bathroom and give my self insulin