Heroes & Villains: Diabetes & Music

Haim's Este Image:4and8

I was not the only one hypoing at Glastonbury this year, Este from the band Haim, who also has Type One, rocked the Pyramid stage mid-Hypo.

I saw them at the Park the next day where they proverbially smashed it. Every now and then Este casually used what appeared to be a glucose spray.

I stood in that crowd wondering how many other people were as excited as me to see someone perform so brilliantly, whilst also dealing with all the usual highs and lows of Diabetes.

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I am twenty-nine and other than John Peel, for the near fifteen years I've had diabetes I've had no D heroes. I didn't think it mattered, because all the people held up as examples, as role models, did not achieve anything I wanted or revered. They all talked about diabetes as if it was easy, a simple case of mind over matter, as if the troubles I had just living a quiet academic life were not good enough excuses for my A1Cs. I didn't think it mattered because I had to reject these 'heroes' in order to feel good about myself. But having been brought close to tears watching Haim perform Falling, I'm wrong, heroes matter.

It really matters to see someone like you, doing things you admire and doing them really fucking well. It really matters that Este wore a dress that meant her tubing bounced around unashamedly as she danced around the stage (just like you can see her pump in the Forever video)

It really matters that she's honest about hypoing and jokes about feeling like she was "going to die in front of 25,000 people!" It really matters that she said she didn't eat before the set, "like a good diabetic", not because it is a lesson in how to be a 'bad diabetic', but because it's a lesson in how everyone with diabetes is attempting to balance the pressures of their professional and social lives with a demanding and unrelenting physical life.

I am twenty-nine and other than John Peel, for the near fifteen years I've had diabetes I've had no D heroes.

It matters that Este is not the only one. And it really matters that her deadpan response to her hypo has been twisted by media outlets into sensationalised headlines or spoken about in patronising tones, as if she 'fell ill' (just google "Este Haim Glastonbury" for an afternoon of ignorant, poorly written material). A hypo isn't an illness, it's a routine part, but sometimes a very scary and very painful, routine part of having a life with diabetes.

More of us need to be as vocal as Este is. The more we are, the more the disease is seen to be what it is: unrelenting but not unlivable, and the more PWDs are seen to be quite spectacular at dealing with something they can never escape and never give up.

4and8 can be found blogging more about Type 1 Diabetes and being a D hero on her blog 4and8 and her twitter @4and8