My Thoughts on The Walking Dead's New Character

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Hello!



First of all, this is about The Walking Dead's newest episode, the one that aired November 15th, 2015. It will also contain MINIMUM SPOILERS. I hate spoiling things, so I will not tell any of the main plot and will give warnings before spoilers from this episode are mentioned. However, the biggest one is just about one character who comes in.


Spoiler Alert:




She's diabetic.





As most of you know, I was diagnosed with type one diabetes nearly four years ago. I was in college and normal and then I wasn't. When I was diagnosed, it wasn't the idea of taking five shots a day, always aware of my plans, being prepared for eating and not eating, knowing what I was ordering at restaurants and having to fill in everyone else about my life that got me upset. Honestly, those were all things I could learn to do. The hardest part for me was knowing that had I been born a hundred years ago: I'd be dead.

I would have been dead at twenty. And that was a sucky thought. What was even worse was knowing if the Doctor came and picked me up to go traveling through time and space with him: I probably wouldn't be able to do it. Not easily, at least. Falling Skies: I would have wanted to be harnessed just so I could be lucky enough to be rescued, get it off without killing me and no longer be diabetic. If the world ended: I would have even more chances to die than the rest, and I am a survivor and a fighter. I even had a plan on keeping my blood sugar in range if I was stranded on an island. (Which would have involved intensive running). This was the hardest thing for me to comprehend-- that in all the books I read, shows I watch and movies I love: I would be dead without so much as a fighting chance.

I don't accept it. So, in my own time, I've figured out plans to survive a zombie apocalypse and being stranded on a deserted island, how to survive being thrown into a dystopian universe or even flying around with the Doctor. And not just survive like normal people (shelter, weapons, food every other day and water), but ways to get sugar and insulin and where to store it and how to keep it close incase my pack gets stolen. I've thought of it all, because I refuse to let this life threatening disease be the death of me.

But today, four years after I started to think about these things: I watched an episode where there was a girl who was diabetic. And she had lived. Even thinking back on this episode I want to cry because that was simply: amazing.



A few spoilers on the diabetic girl's backstory:





She was in DC. Her family went up to find her. That was refreshing as I want to travel. Her family still found her and she lived. She was diabetic and she LIVED. 

Also, she looked even more like Peter Pan than I do which is the biggest compliment ever. GO FORTH PIXIE GIRL AND BE AWESOME.



She survived, like everyone else in the world. It was harder for her, but she did it. As a diabetic it was one of the most refreshing things I could see on television. There are no heroes who have chronic illnesses. It's something I would really like to see change in the world. Just because I am diabetic does not mean I can't kick a zombie's ass in the apocalypse. 




SPOILERS FROM THIS EPISODE & A CHALLENGE
do not read if you want this character's fate to be ruined.






This is your last chance. Scroll right on back up!





Okay, I warned you.







She died. And I was upset, not because she was diabetic but because she was got startled and fell. Lame way to go. I really, really, REALLY wish that she would have lived to become an epic character. She has every chance to die, like everyone else in the show. But as a diabetic, I would have been amazing to see how she lived a little longer. How she survived day to day in this world, how she forced people to see her for herself and not her disease. I would have loved to see how she pushed forward despite her chronic disease that is NOT brought on by eating too many sweets. I would have absolutely loved to see a strong female character with the same disease that affects me every day.


Thus here is my challenge, to any movie producer, book writer or TV show host:

Make a strong character with a chronic disease. Make them known, make them loved and give them every chance to die as any other character but first--
Let them live.





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