Dotty Parker

medical maladies

I taught a class this morning and was quite foolish and did not eat breakfast. About halfway through I explained that I hadn't eaten and needed some sugar in my bloodstream.

I came back with my peanutty delight and one of my students was talking quite a lot about me. She thinks I have diabetes. She thinks that because I drink water and I have to eat when I have to eat. I think it's normal to eat when hungry and one of the reasons I like my job is that it's flexible enough to allow me to grab some food if I'm hungry.

She asked me a series of questions that asked about symptoms of diabetes. They were appropriate questions, I suppose, but mostly it makes me wonder about why most of us feel the need to diagnose and then share the news.

I think diagnosing a problem is a normal human drive. Humans like to categorize, as far as I know. I think I read that somewhere. I think it's reasonable to categorize things. It helps to tell things apart, to determine like from unlike, safe from dangerous. It's also a good thing to share those deteminations so that not everyone has to learn first hand that something, like fire or poison ivy, can hurt you.

The place that I can't put together is why people who have been categorized feel like they need to draw others into that categorization. The woman in my class sees that I'm hungry and that I get glasses of water. She assumes not that I'm hungry and get up late and don't eat; she assumes that I am diabetic.

If I had ingrown toenails and someone who'd been standing all day said they had sore feet, should I mention that it might be ingrown toenails? If I have some incredibly rare spinal condition, would I tell anyone with scoliosis that they'll end up with a hump and scaly skin?

It's weird. People want to help each other. They try to help, too. Sometimes it works, I'm sure. Most of the time, though, they aren't right and they've created for themselves a group of people who refuse to be like them. At least for this woman, that's true. She did and didn't want me to have diabetes so badly. She did want me to have it so that I'd be like her. She didn't want me to be diabetic because she doesn't want anyone to have to be diabetic.

Perhaps the answer is simply that people want to see themselves reflected back in all kinds of ways. In me she'd see someone younger who has diabetes, who doesn't have diabetes, who is smart enough to get it checked out nice and early, who is smart enough to not worry about it yet.

At any rate, I'm not diabetic today. Maybe tomorrow. Or in the future. Or maybe the next time someone tries to get me to join their club.

Posted by dotty at June 15, 2004 11:54 PM