When my brother and I were kids in the ‘80s, we loved Sniglets, a series of books popularized on the show Not Necessarily the News. A sniglet is “any word that doesn’t appear in the dictionary, but should.” To play the Game of Sniglets, you could create a new nonsense word, repurpose an old one, make combinations, etc. They always made us laugh or made us think about funny situations, like ambivilane – the striped area by an exit ramp where people often pull off when trying to decide “Is this my exit?”
A common word we often hear in the online community is diaversary – the anniversary of your diabetes diagnosis. Taking a page from diaversary, we came up with the following for our diabetes dictionary (which of course we would call a diadictionary).
diabetic – [old English] a term once used to describe people with diabetes
diameter – the distance travelled by a person with diabetes to reach his or her glucose meter
diaphragm – the muscle used for deep, calm breaths when someone asks, ‘Did you eat too much sugar?’
diabolical – how one acts when blood sugar is high
dialogue – the conversation one has when meeting someone else wearing an insulin pump
diagonal – that perfect 45° injection angle
diatribe – the angry, frustrated rant a person with diabetes goes off on when talking to their endocrinologist
diamond – the level of frequent flier miles you’d be at if you could count it in test strips
diagnosis – the day that will live in infamy
diarrhea – a condition caused by sugar free candy
diagram – what you draw while trying to understand your deductible and co-pay
diaper bag – what you need to carry all your diabetes junk
diagnostic – when you’re not sure whether you believe you took your dose or not
diary – your BG logs
dia de los muertos – you the morning after a major low blood sugar
And to get a little sillier…
diasaster – when you go to get that one last supply and realize you’re already out
diatitian – the one you have to answer to (besides your scale)
dianother-day – our favorite James Bond film
diamn shame – when you go low but you’re out of the good candy
dialicious – when it’s low carb but you can’t tell
diavulge – when you share your A1C with the DOC
dialate – when you’re late for work because of an eye exam
diapression – when dealing with diabetes sends you into overwhelm mode
What diabetes sniglet would you add? Tell us in the comments!
