Chronically ill local sisters shed insight into daily battle of living with a sickness you can’t see

These sisters share more than blood. They have the same chronic disease and are all too familiar with the naive commentary which comes with living with an often invisible illness.

These two Hervey Bay sisters have the exact same chronic illness but, the impact from their illness is not always visible and uneducated comments from people “make it worse”.

Their personalty types differ but but they both have the same type of diabetes.

Type One Wondunna sisters Sarah Buenen, 28, and Jessica Ball, 35, are among more than 6,900 people in the Fraser Coast living with the stigma that can come with having an often invisible illness.

They put the failure of many to understand the complicated chronic disease down to a “lack of education” and hope that by speaking out, people will start to see things differently.

Sarah, a registered nurse, told the Chronicle even other health professionals often got it wrong.

“If I have (low blood sugar) at work … a lot of people will pull the whole ‘you don't know how to manage your diabetes’ card … Well, no, (they) just don't understand diabetes,” she said.

Sarah, wearing a device which helps her closely monitor where her blood glucose level is going.

With the impact of type one diabetes differing between each individual, knowledge on the illness has become more difficult for people to develop.

However, common themes are the financial burden, mental health toll and, constant daily processes needed just to stay alive.

Sarah said understanding what comments should and shouldn’t be made to someone with an illness would be an important step forward, as she often received comments from people saying: “You don‘t look like a diabetic, you’re too skinny.”

“People often mistake type one diabetes with type two (the latter can be controlled by diet, the former cannot) … if I get any spike of adrenaline, anything that changes my heart rate or makes it race a little bit, my sugar levels go absolutely haywire … even if I wake up after having a nightmare, I'll prick my finger, check my levels and they'll be high,” Sarah said.

(L to R) Local Hervey Bay sisters Sarah, who was diagnosed in 2016 with type one diabetes when she was 23 years old, and Jessica, who was diagnosed in 2007 with type one diabetes when she was 21 years old.

Jessica said as Sarah was “more petite” than her, people often thought she had “type two diabetes and (Sarah) has type one”.

“The most recent example was at my workplace, there was a cake there, and somebody just made an offhand comment that the cake looks like diabetes … It was a little bit offensive … the mis-education that people have about the difference between type one and type two diabetes, and even what type two diabetes means as well,” Jessica said.

“I think for me, the biggest thing is that people tend to think it‘s okay to voice their opinions without consideration.

“Not only do I have to manage my own feelings of being offended or emotionally stressed or something, but I also have to manage someone’s unawareness of a topic that affects me directly.”

Originally published as Chronically ill local sisters shed insight into daily battle of living with a sickness you can’t see