Me: Hi!
She smiled.
Me: How are you?
She shrugged her shoulders.
Her mother was her door to the world, who entered the room apologizing for her daughter’s erratic sugars. Unlike her daughter she was an open person with a ready smile. She had three kids, after two daughters especially one with type 1 diabetes, she didn’t have much choice in a small city, she explained.
I went straight to few relevant questions.
Me: How do you manage hypoglycemia in school?
She shrugged.
Me: Do you eat something sweet if you get a low sugar in the class?
She moved her head side to side- which meant NO.
Me: Do you get low sugars in school?
She again moved her head (NO).
Me: Does anyone in your class know you have type 1 diabetes?
She moved her head side to side (NO).
Her mother said, she would frequently come back home really cranky and eat a lot-obviously because she was having low sugar.
Me: But she has an insulin pump. Don’t her friends ask what it is?
Mother: She tells them that’s a phone to call her mother. She is too ashamed to tell about her diabetes.
So here was a 11 year old hiding her diabetes from ALL her friends and as a result hiding her low sugar from everyone. If you have experienced or watched someone with low sugar, you would understand how difficult it must be to hide it. One this can be deadly suddenly someday. Second hiding so much has obviously made her so shy, that she didn’t speak a word in an hour sitting with me.

Her silence was screaming so much about the stigma, which we choose not to hear. By the time she grows up, she would be buried under piles of complexes….

Or may be not. What makes life interesting is that its unpredictable! Lets hope this young shy girl finds the courage to tell everyone that she has type 1 diabetes. Her friends may or may not be very understanding, but she will realize that her worth is not dependent on their perception.

I didn’t have the heart to advise her anything. All I could tell her was-“I think you are amazing!” She smiled…Silently.