text: I am a Type I diabetic, and I find it to be a pretty serious condition. From a medical stand-point, it's something that requires constant care and vigilance, and you have no idea how old that gets after about twenty years of it. Three injections per day, blood sugar testing, not fun stuff.\n\nI'm managing my own care (no insurance), but diabetics who don't generally see a doctor every three months for lots of blood work and being bitched at by fat men in lab coats. The reason for the visits is pretty much to avoid complications, like neuropathy, retinopathy, kidney damage, and so forth. I still have all of my original parts; however, I have known since I was eleven that some day, I will probably lose one or both of my feet. No, it is not a matter of control; the best diabetic I know got a weird, random infection and chop, minus two toes.\n\nFrom a social point of view, I think it's even worse. Kids teased me school for not eating sweets; teachers made me sit in the corner during class parties. On my hall my freshman year at college, none of my dorm mates would wait for me to give my injections before going out to the dining hall. It was too much of a hassle to give me five minutes notice or wait for me. Yeah, those are tiny things, but tiny unrelenting insults eventually cause pain. I've given up the idea of having non-diabetic friends.\n\nRomantically, it's been tough too. Few guys are willing to hang around once they knew I'm unwilling to risk having children. Sorry, but I don't like children; I do like my eye-sight and kidney function. Very much in fact. Even other diabetic men are pretty unforgiving. They just don't understand that the cost is higher for me than them.\n\nBasically, my point here is that it affects every area of a person's life. Diabetes is a chronic condition. No matter what any of us do, it's there with us. No, it's not MS or ALS or AIDS, but it still impacts quality of life in ways normal people can't even think of.\n\nI'm not sure if you would call that input or venting.