FarmVille image from Best FarmVille Farms blog *snicker*.
I have often wished there were a really convenient way to convey to people without diabetes how it takes over parts of your brain life. I think I’ve figured it out: FarmVille.
You know Facebook, right? Of course, you do. So, you probably know FarmVille, too.
Just in case you don’t, here it is, as I understand it. It’s a game that I don’t want to play but it taints whatever I’m doing in Facebook. Consider this typical in-head conversation I might have while perusing Facebook: “Oh look, James is starting another amusing political rant. . . . Oh! Miriam is having a baby! That’s exciting. . . . Kittehs! . . . Cute baby pictures! . . . Nina is in London. Again. There’s no “Jealous” button. . . . Poor puppy is wearing the cone of shame . . . Jeanne found a fancy duck on her farm, and wants my help?! WTF is this? . . . Oh! A YouTube video! I love videos! . . . Heidi needs my help to plow her wheat field?! Make it stop! Make it STOP!! . . .”
At least, that’s how it was until Mary taught me that I could ignore all of the FarmVille notifications. Now I only think about it when I visit my mother-in-law’s Facebook page.
But that’s diabetes. If you have it, it takes over your mental timeline (to use the Facebook lingo).
“Well, here I am at work, getting ready to do all kinds of awesome stuff. . . . I wonder what my blood sugar is. . . . I’ve been working for an hour or so and making great progress. . . .” BEEP BEEP BEEP!! “My CGM tells me that my blood sugar is rising. Should I do something about that or wait for the insulin to kick in? I’ll wait and get back to work. . . . I wonder what my blood sugar is.”
If only there were a safe way to “hide all notifications from diabetes.” *sigh*.
Ha! Brilliant post Jeff – you’re so right!
Thanks for a funny post, but I think we’d need it to do a bit more than annoy the hell out of people to convey what diabetes is really like! For example, even when they follow all the rules, they still don’t always get it right, which does not make for a compelling game! As for hiding all the notifications for diabetes, the best way to do that is to refocus the medical professions fixation on managing diabetes to eradicating diabetes, through prevention of type 2 (which public health officials have downright failed to do) and reversing type 1. So far, in spite of valiant efforts from some, doctors remain fixated on managing the disease, hence they have the issues public health deals with today.
ha! before i got to the part about my having showed you how to turn off those notifications/mentions on your news feed, i was thinking, “i can’t believe jeff doesn’t know how to hide that stuff!”