T

hings about FFL

6. Dinsey Hollywood Studios with front of the line passes? Pure awesome

5. It is the only place on earth where peope clap widly for getting the ‘Betes.

4. Real World: Glucose shots- $2.00. ‘Betes World: Glucose shots- 100% free.

3. Annual Get a New Meter or 6 trip.

2.

1. It’s called “Friends for Life” for a reason - Y’all are everything.

Here are six reasons for why we have a “Top Six” feature and not a “Top Ten.”

6. My meter only goes to 600.

5. The ‘Betes has been on my back for 6 years.

4. I have six pack abs.

3. I can only eat six skittles before The ‘Betes kicks my ass.

2. My A1C is 6.0.

1. Unlike Letterman, we don’t have the writers to get to 10.

The ‘Betes has infiltrated our lives. However long the forced cohabitation with The ‘Betes has been for you - years, months, days, hours - it’s been too long. The ‘Betes is too many things: too long, too much, too hard, too confusing, too high, too low, too, too, too. To manage all of this we deal with meters, needles and pricks every day.

But times are a’changing. I mean, we still have to put up with needles and pricks but at least now I can pick the color of my meter!

Among all the baggage The ‘Betes carries with it as it elbows its way into our lives is a word. A horrible word. A label. But before I get into that let’s talk about labels for a second. What is a label? Well, according to dictionary.com (C’mon, you weren’t expecting me to go find an actual book were you?) a label is “a short word or phrase descriptive of a person, group, intellectual movement.”

Got that? A short word or phrase descriptive of a person or group.

The ‘Betes carries with it this label: “diabetic.” There is no worse word in the world. Why? Because of all the confusion, misconceptions and misunderstandings that come along with it. To the world at large it communicates things like “lazy,” “unhealthy,” “fat,” “sugar-free,” and, worst of all, “old.”

It doesn’t describe us with The ‘Betes or our lives. It doesn’t rely to the general public our relationship with The ‘Betes - our trials, triumphs, or, most importantly, our youth. So, I propose a new label, one that communicates it all: “diabadass.” If we could convince the people around us to replace the horribly offensive “diabetic” with the more appropriate “diabadass” we could all live a little easier.

Anyone who won’t is just a prick and we know how to deal with those.

- Connor

Remember: keep it ‘Betes and all that stuff.