Being in a minority group in the world has it's disadvantages and it challenges and as my heading states ignorance is bliss. Many people flow through life and unbeknownst to them they are ignorant of what can happen outside of their own life. They think they know all and that everyone else is the same. They can eat a whole wheat sandwich and would never think that that same thing could cause big problems to someone who is a ceiliac. They drink Coke and never think that with out consideration and calculation that same drink could send a T1 into DKA (Diabetic Ketoacidosis).
I was at a work function the other day, and I have had this before but this was the most recent, and we we actually playing golf for a charity day with work. It was close to 30 degrees and I had been drinking water after water. Everynow and again a drink cart would come by and I would ask the driver if they had any diet drinks? Most times they would apologise and say no diet drinks in here they might be in another cart but close to the last hole for the day I asked the same question and it was met with a comment that I had heard before but because I was becoming exhausted from the day of golf and managing my levels to ensure I stay out of the hypo range I answered abruptly. The statement was "why would you want diet? There is so much chemicals in that stuff it will kill you. You would be better off with the normal stuff." My response to that was short and sweet as I was not in the mood to educate today "The chemicals in the diet would kill me a lot slower than the sugar in the normal stuff!" I turned and went to tee off. Usually this would be met with some sort of education or even a comment about being a T1 but not today.
Other times and it is predominantly with drinks I have ordered at restaurants and fast food places. I place my order for a diet coke and when it comes, either as a mistake or a lack of care the first sip I take I test the water to make sure it is what they say. I once went to a movie theatre and ordered my diet coke and for some reason that day I was ridiculously thirsty and to tell you the truth the post mix drink was a bad mix however I got into the movie and just took long sips of the drink until it was nearly half gone. I continued drinking and about half way through the film I started to wonder why I was starting to feel my blood thicken and my over all body ache. I went through my head what I had done. BSL was good and I hadn't eaten anything so there should be no reason for it. I checked my pump and everything was working fine. There was no redness around the site indicating infection so I was stumped. Then it hit me, I took a careful sip of my drink, 3/4 empty drink, and asked my wife to do the same. The slight honk of the sugar crystals hit me and I thought wholly crap I just drank a ridiculousness amount of sugar and have not had any insulin. I quickly pulled out my tester and found that the damage had quickly shot me into the 20's and the explanation on why I felt so bad became clear. I corrected using my pump and waited for the levels to start dropping. Because of the amount of sugar a number of manual shots were needed to make sure I came down and this process took around 3 hours to get back into range. Not to mention the many hours of recovery from there.
As I said ignorance is bliss but in the wrong circumstance it is very dangerous. If that was to happen to my daughter and she wasn't able to tell me what had happened it could have taken her to DKA very quickly. I always watch when ever possible when post mix drinks are poured now and I have pulled up a half a dozen people who put regular in instead of diet. One day care for others will become important and ignorance will become less however you can lead a drink to water but you can't make them drink. The same is said of many people no matter how much you teach them unless they want to learn then your words go on deaf ears.
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