Kalhoun, what is your problem? You’re not usually this pig-headed about a topic.
Simplification: Monitoring and injecting is part of eating for diabetics. The two things just go together, always and forever.
A couple of weeks ago I saw a woman do her whole routine at a Red Robin. All very matter of fact–test, calculate what she needed, lift skirt slightly, poke thigh, smooth skirt. All while reading the menu and thanking the waiter for bringing her ice tea.
Why did I notice this? Very simple–I’m a nosy bint and I have no manners. Why did I pay attention after noticing? Because my paternal great-grandmother (Type I), paternal grandfather (Type I) and my dad (Type II) were/are diabetic. I worry that I’m next. I admire people controlling the disease to the extent that they can rather than letting it steal their lives.
Because I have a co-worker who just lost his leg and has been on dialysis for 8 years. Because I have another co-worker that has a 6-year old daughter who was diagnosed last year–for the rest of her life she will have to always be aware of her levels of physical activity, food and fluid intake and outgo; she has to monitor on a regular schedule, eat when appropriate and what is appropriate. She has to do this at home, at school, where ever she is…including at resturants. As if she isn’t inconvenienced enough by the disease, you want her to further be inconvenienced so that people she doesn’t even know can be relieved of their responsibility to mind their own business.
She’s only 5 and it hurts my heart to think of her and Hentor’s boy having to deal with this every day. It’s a pretty big burden and I’m not sure why the possible discomfort of a nosy stranger should trump the requirements of the diabetic.
I’m surrounded by diabetics (you–all of you!–are too) and I know they go through a routine. Several people I work with have recently been diagosed Type II. For the most part, I can’t tell you the details of an individual’s routine because they are discreet and I don’t pay that much attention, but I know they all test at work.
Also, do you really want to walk into the ladies’ room and see a mom trying to cope with her three kids while going through the whole diabetes routine? Wouldn’t it just be easier to ignore what’s going on at the other tables unless it affects you in some way?
What Hentor described in his OP was not bad manners, even before the subsequent clarifications for the benefit of obtuse posters. Staring at someone else’s table is. If you are only glancing at the table, you’re not likely to see more than one part of the routine as the whole thing takes very little time–probably less time than hauling the kid to the restroom.
And finally, Kalhoun, I think that the fact that you don’t notice people doing this while you’re out to eat is indicative that most diabetics are discreet when doing their routine, rather than indicating that most diabetics are testing and injecting in the restrooms.