Inspired by the sight of such a young guy crippled by poor eyesight and a cast-boot on my foot, some old fart approached me in Wal-Mart the other day. You know the type, a clever old guy, in his own mind. He asked if I kicked someone to hurt my foot. Trying to adopt a kinder and gentler persona in my gimpiness, I did not say, "no, nut I’m going to hurt the other one kicking you." Marginal friendliness was enough to get the old guy talking, about the boot-cast and foot injuries. He was full of unsolicited advice of the most generic sorts. I finally asked him if he had ever heard of Charcot Foot and when he said "no," I was ready with "Then you shouldn’t give advice about things you know nothing about, should you?"
His further attempts at medical talk after that just irritated me more. He was sharp enough to add together foot injury and blind fool to equal diabetic, and to see that his advice to a surly diabetic was only increasing the surly part and retreated politely. The conversation never crossed the rude threshold. As long as he was going to spend it away from me, I could unbegrudgingly wish him a food day.
So why exactly is it that people feel a need to start offering advice to strangers without knowing a thing about the strangers’ situations? Even acquaintances do this. The answer to a casual question "het, what happened?" invites all sorts of unwanted advice, especially from the elderly. Maybe elderly folk liking to talk about their maladies, but that’s not an interest I share. I don’t particularly want people meeting my club foot story with their history of bunions or topping my blind story with tales of their prostate
Those who offer unsolicited advice about diabetes are even worse. There’s more and more diabetes experts out there now that Type 2 is epidemic due to lifestyles of the lifestyles of rich foods and Famous Amos.
I don’t know it all so don’t mean to sound arrogant, but I readily research "new" things I hear about. As for the older things...I have been diabetic since I was four years old There’s a lot of practical living experience in that time. It’s just not very likely that a newly diagnosed Type 2–or worse, someone whose spouse/parent/brother was newly diagnosed–will be able tp give advice that I haven’t heard before. I attended a learning class on diabetes just a few years ago, and most of the pudgy old new Type 2’s in the class thought they learned more from me than the pharmacist, nurse and nutritionist who were running the class. But I’m sure that was just me being a disruptive asset to the class.
The diabetes advisors are tougher for me to deal with. If they know I am diabetic, they are not some lonely old guy cruising the aisles of Wal-Mart for conversation. They are more likely acquaintances, or worse, friends who are sticking their noses in with the best of intentions. They give me practice with that kinder and gentler persona that does not seem to come naturally to me. They act as advisors and food police. Few understand the differences between Type 2 and juvenile diabetes, the true breadth of the condition or the endless and impossible pursuit of lifestyle perfection that very few diabetics can ever achieve and are usually feeling guilty about every failure.
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