The Joke

Note: Beta Cell is an audio podcast and includes emotion that is not reflected in text. Transcripts are generated by human transcribers and may contain errors. Please check the corresponding audio before quoting.

Craig: From Beta Cell, this is Thicker Than Water, I'm Craig Stubing. October 17th, 2017, 2:09 PM. Jimmy Kimmel posts on Twitter to his 1.3 million followers, "Thank you for the cookies, Kelly Ripa, you are sweeter than diabetes," the responses were immediate."

The dumb ass jokes about diabetes are almost worse than having the disease. Please find another punchline." "My son has type one diabetes, which is an autoimmune disease. Eating cookies did not cause his T1D." "Explain exactly what is sweet about multiple injections every day," and on and on and on.

This was not the first time a public figure or company has joked about diabetes and it wasn't the last either. SNL, PopSugar, and CrossFit all followed suit with the same amount of backlash.

I can see why this wouldn't seem like such a big deal, it's just a joke, no one got hurt but when every day of your life is in some part defined by a disease that is constantly trying to kill you and ends up directly killing 1.6 million people every year, the punchline falls flat. We don't joke about brain cancer school shootings, rapes or heart defects. While it definitely trivializes the life or death struggle that people all over the world with type one diabetes struggle with, the bigger issue for me is that these jokes inform the public knowledge of what diabetes is.

As long as people see it as the cookie disease, we will continue to have to fight for research funding, to fight for our right to manage this disease in the workplace and to fight for access to affordable insulin. But it's one thing to see a tweet online and another to hear it in person, especially when you've just been diagnosed with type one diabetes, like my aunt Laura heard at a baseball game recently.

Laura: Disclaimer because as a dietician, I remember disclaimers of, whatever we talk about is in the realm of our own health care plan. Do you know what I mean?

Craig: Yes.

Laura: People listening should really just do what their health care provider says. I mean, you have to listen to your physician. They're the experts. You get their advice and that's why you go to see them, and so it's just like people would tell me what I should eat and I'm like, "Okay, you know what, I'm a registered dietician, you don't need to tell me what to eat." [laughs]

Craig: That's funny.

Laura: "I know what I should eat." It's the same, I guess diabetics feel that way too when people tell them what to eat and it’s like, "You know what."

Craig: Have you gotten any of that?

Laura: No, I haven't had a lot of interaction. Since I don't work anymore, I don't have a lot of outside discussion. It was my birthday last week and your uncle and I went out to dinner and they offered us two free desserts and I was like, "Well, no, thank you." They really were pushing it and I just said, "No, I'm sorry. I'm diabetic and I really can't eat a full dessert, so just bring us one and we'll share it." I think most people being respectful will see if somebody I meet along the way knew and says to me, "You can eat that," but I haven't gotten that from our friends.

I get a lot of questions about what can I eat, which is fine because that's just educating and I always say to them, "Look at this point in my learning, lots of things are limiting for me but diabetics can eat whatever they want as long as it's within their, again, health care plan and they modify their insulin in order to cover what they're eating. I never say, I can't have that. I just say, at this time I'm limited on what I can eat but it's not like I can't have that.

Craig: It's just how much of that thing you're allowed to eat too.

Laura: Right. At least from what I've read and I know knowing you, it's people who say, "Well, what do you mean you can't have a cupcake?" I guess we just have to be always educators, which I know can be hard. Did I tell you the story about at the ballpark, how I overheard somebody talking?

Craig: No.

Laura: Okay. We went to a baseball game. There were some people in front of us and I couldn't hear the whole conversation but I heard them say something about, well, all she talks about is carbs. The carbohydrates in this, the carbohydrates in that, the carbohydrates in this, I wasn't sure if they were talking about somebody who is just on a low-carb diet because those are very popular right now or if it was somebody who was diagnosed. Then later they passed a bag of those gummy bears over and one of the people made a joke saying, "Oh, well talk about diabetes, let's all get it." I was just like, "Ah."

Craig: You didn't say anything?

Laura: I don't want to interrupt. I don't want to-- I'm not going to interrupt people that are not talking to me. If I were talking to these people and they said something to me, then I would have said, "Oh, I know that appears to be funny, but-" [laughter]

Craig: Appears to be funny.

Laura: "Actually that is not how you get diabetes." It's hard to say it when you know the people you're talking with.

Craig: Yes.

Laura: I've heard that before with other people when it's not part of my conversation. When it is part of my conversation, I have said, "Well, you know that's not the way diabetes works," then they usually look at me because I'm thinking, "Well, if you want me to explain it to you, I can." That was before I was diagnosed even.

Craig: Did that joke sting differently? Maybe not sting, maybe it didn't sting before but did that joke sound a different way to you?

Laura: Well, it did make me roll my eyes even more like, "No, that's not." I think the way to do it is, if somebody talks to you about it and I know it's hard but I would want to be very polite and saying-- If they joke, "Well, I don't want to get diabetes," and I would say, "That is so great that you are watching your diet that is super but just so you know, type two diabetes is a combination of a lot of things and it's not just eating this or not doing that, you have to really pay attention. Type one diabetics, there's nothing they could've done, nothing. It just happens. Autoimmune, their pancreas shuts down, they're done.

For type two, it's good if you're trying to avoid that but if you end up being a type one, that candy bar isn't what did it"

Craig: Exactly.

Laura: Right. I know it's very hard for-- Especially, I haven't been a diabetic very long. When I listen to you and your friends or I see things online, it's got to be really hard especially when you've been a diabetic as a child because you've gotten it a lot from a lot of different places. Every time you went to and met a new friend and you went to a birthday party or you had an event at school or then you go to college and you have new roommates and new friends and then when you start new jobs. I mean, it's always talking about it, in the realm of letting people know.

Craig: That's what we're doing here.

Laura: Yes. Do you still hear a lot-- Do you talk to people if they were strangers, would you have corrected them?

Craig: I don't know if it's ever really happened to me for me to know. I'd like to think that I would but I also don't want to be an asshole and then them think all people with type one are assholes.

Laura: Right.

Craig: At the same time, I understand that if you don't correct people, then that's why it keeps going. You got to, what's the phrase? Cut the snake off at the head, something like that.

Laura: It's all in how you do it. Like you said, you have to be-- I don't know. That's why I think I would take the approach of, "I'm so glad you're thinking about that, excess calories and weight and all these things can lead to diabetes but just so you know, that would be type two diabetes. When you meet somebody who's a type one that's a whole different thing." I mean, that's the bothersome thing about it being called diabetes, both of them.

Craig: Even type two has a lot of genetics involved.

Laura: Yes.

Craig: Maybe the answer is just, "Excuse me. I heard you made a joke about diabetes but I just want to let you know that that's not actually how diabetes works. Me and everyone else with diabetes would appreciate it if you wouldn't."

Laura: [laughs] "You didn't joke about us so much."

Craig: I mean, you could do the whole sob story of, hey, these many people die from diabetes every year blah, blah, blah, including kids. Maybe it's just the simple answer just that's not how it is and I'd appreciate it. Everyone would appreciate it if you didn't do that.

Laura: You wonder why are their jokes about high cholesterol and heart disease or when people smoke. You smoke like crazy, that's your pathway to lung cancer. [laughs]

Craig: I guess cancer gets more sympathy.

Laura: Right. I think it's mainly people just they just don't understand what it is.

Craig: They don't understand what it is and they don't understand how dangerous it is too. Diabetes doesn't seem like life-threatening the way that cancer does.

Laura: See, it's because of type II because when you see the commercials on TV, type II it's not the same as type I. I think that's the hard part, is explaining. Like when they say, did you get the good diabetes or the bad diabetes? Okay. Well, both diabetes are not good. [laughs]

Craig: If I had a choice, I wouldn't pick either.

Laura: Neither one is good but did I get the one that is more of a huge lifestyle change? Yes. That's going to take a toll on me If I don't take care of it? Yes. That could really hurt me if I don't pay attention to it? Yes. [laughs] It's just, we'll see. We'll see what happens the next time I hear somebody at a ballpark.

Craig: Yes. We'll record it when you do.

Laura: I'll record it.

Craig: On the next episode of Thicker Than Water, aunt Laura takes our first extra unit of insulin.

[music]

Craig: Thicker Than Water is a production of Beta Cell. As always, a very special thanks to my aunt Laura. This amazing theme song is by Nina Ragonese. If you haven't yet, please leave us a view on iTunes. It really helps other people find the show. You can find that on your phone in the apple podcast app on iTunes on your computer. Thanks in advance.

I'm Craig and this is Thicker Than Water.

[music]