Guess who I am? I’ll give you a hint: I can make you feel very strange, especially if you are a child. I am not a pedophile, not really, but I have formerly been known as that.

No, I am not a criminal, critic, or a wrestler. Guess again.

No, I am diabetes, Type 1, to be exact, also known as juvenile diabetes. The most interesting thing about my job is that I can make you feel peculiar, like shaky, dizzy, and tired, or to the other end of extremes, you can feel jittery, constantly thirsty, and unfocused. The numbers of how much sugar is in your blood can make you relieved or very distressed. The irony of it is, even though it is I who inflicts the pain on you, it is your own doing. You see, it happened a while ago, and when something unusual happened, and now your pancreas takes the blame. Isn’t that the best part? You are hurting yourself. Oh, the irony.

As you have probably heard, I have a partner-in-crime, also known as Type 2. Normally people talk about Type 2 diabetes as the only disease, but there’s more than one kind. I think it’s annoying that he gets all the fame. I am inflicting people left and right, but he practically just sits there, waiting for you to come to him. He isn’t even hurting you, and if you want to get rid of your predicament, all you have to do is lose weight and eat healthier. Me, I’m not so willing to let you go.

Although once, when I was lurking in the doctor’s office, waiting to see who my next victim is, and I heard it-- a way to end me. I heard tell of a person who, miraculously, almost got rid of his diabetes by eating only celery. But, let’s face it, who wants to eat such a tasteless thing as celery? So, you should keep eating more enjoyable foods, basically because they taste better, not to mention what’s in it for me.

Or I guess you could go the other way, the way that’s more recent. It’s called “islet cell transplant” and they bring you cells from pigs, but then you have to take anti-rejection pills for the rest of your life. Which would you rather take every day, pills, or food and insulin as a remedy?

See, there’s your choice: the part that makes it your decision. Whether you want to take insulin and deal with not enough insulin and too many carbohydrates (high), too many units of insulin and too little carbohydrates (low), or, if you are over 18, to take pills every day, and to not have to deal with this.

It truly is your choice. I’m just the one advising your decisions. I think you should go with the Type 1 diabetes option, because it will be interesting to see how you deal with your situation, not to mention what’s in it for me. What is in it for you? You might ask, and I would answer, “It’s the simple joy of getting pain out of you, of watching you frown as you are annoyed that the numbers didn’t work this time either, and don’t you want to make me happy? If not. . well then, I can make your life worse, and worse, and worse than it already is (and either way, you get the bad part of the deal).”

And then, I drift away to make another human a subject to the everlasting suffering which is so delightful to cause.