A while back I wrote a post called Diabetes Money. A friend on tudiabetes.org mistook it for Diabetes Monkey, so I promised to write that post one day. I googled “monkey on your back” and found these four definitions (from urban dictionary):
1. To have some very burdensome nuisance you have to put up with–in a sense wider than just a drug or other addiction. Some would certainly consider diabetes a burdensome nuisance…
2. To have an addiction, especially a drug addiction. We might say we are addicted to insulin or metformin, etc.
3. To have a deep, uncontrollable desire to do something such as Gamble, Smoke, or Drink. I can think of many things we may have deep, uncontrollable desires to do with some of our diabetes equipment…
4. Severe relentless back pain one gets during opiate withdrawal. Back pain not so much – unless it’s from a non diabetes-related cause.
Here is a fifth one (from wikianswers):
5. A monkey on your back is anything at all that you find to be a constant burden. You have to finish your BA degree for advancement at work, you are married and have a small child. Having to get that degree is “a monkey on your back.” It usually doesn’t refer to actual physical burdens.
It’s easy to get dragged into thinking that diabetes is a constant burden, however, I like to take a different approach. One that causes less stress, anxiety and subsequent high blood glucose levels. Maybe diabetes can be a fuzzy monkey like the one Ross used to have on the TV show, Friends. It’s with us all the time; it’s not going away, and we can still live our lives and enjoy ourselves. We might even have a little fun with it every now and then.
