what’s my tagline? #hawmc day 26

“a girl with a smart mouth, a dumb pancreas, and some thoughts on living with type 1 diabetes.”

That tagline pretty much says it all, as far as I’m concerned.

I got in trouble a LOT when I was little for talking, talking a lot, talking too much, talking when I wasn’t supposed to. Often I was saying things out of a “smart mouth,” or “too smart for my own good,” or just being a “smartypants.”

To me, that just means that I say what I mean, or what’s obvious to me. I wasn’t (usually) trying to push anyone’s buttons or get myself in trouble. My Facebook About page used to say under Languages that I’m fluent in sarcasm. Sarcasm, or the ability to be a smartypants, is indeed a language. Mark Z. and co. took away that option from the selections for Language. I wholeheartedly disagree with that decision.

Add type 1 diabetes to a kid with a smart mouth, and you get smartDpants. I call(ed) it like I see (saw) it. For instance: the exchange diet never made any sense to me, and fearing sugar (or paying for it with guilt and/or exercise) didn’t, either. I somehow felt carb counting deep inside me many years before anyone ever told me about it, but that didn’t do me any good. Except I knew that I actually COULD have a cupcake, if there were enough insulin to “pay” for those carbs, and it wasn’t going to kill me to do that.

Saying that kind of thing to medical professionals in the early 80’s also got me the labels of “emotional eater,” “noncompliant,” and as I would be reminded multiple times over, a “smart mouth.” Somehow that made them feel better than if they had taught me about insulin-carbohydrate ratios and insulin sensitivity. Go figure. I guess a lot of them were still making their patients use sliding scales, so maybe I shouldn’t be so hard on them. Except I am.

If my mouth is smart, then my pancreas is the complete opposite. I’m SO not thrilled with my pancreas, even though I know I should really be pissed at my autoimmune system for attacking it, if I were going to go all the way with this description. It feels better to me to have something concrete to be mad at, and my pancreas fits the bill. The autoimmune system is too dispersed to really focus my pissedoffedness at it. Sorry, pancreas. I know that DNA really didn’t do you any favors, either.

Finally, “some thoughts on living with type 1.” That’s what you get, here at smartDpants. My life, how I live it, how type 1 fits and doesn’t fit into it, and what I think about that. Sure, I’ll throw in some feelings, too. Evidently, according to some previous medical professionals in my life, I am emotional 😉

wego Health Activist Writer’s Month Challenge, Day 26: Health tagline. Give yourself, your blog, your condition, or some aspect of your health a tagline. Make sure it’s catchy!