Regardless of my forward thinking, I never imagined that one of my children would be diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes.
On this, my thirtieth year, of living with the disease myself I’ve embraced diabetes through humor, love, thoughtful living and yes – occasional tears.
Type 1 diabetes is a relentless disease. As a parent, it requires the ability to carry out two opposing tasks at once – controlling and letting go. Try doing that in a yoga class. Seriously, these things are impossible to master at the same time; it’s sort of like swimming underwater and not holding your breath.
As is true in most things, we begin to master the skills of controlling what’s controllable and letting go of what’s not (for fear we may lose our minds otherwise).
It only took a few hours with a fresh diagnosis for me to realize that Type 1 diabetes in my daughter wasn’t the same disease I lived day-to-day with. We call it by the same name, it has similar attributes, tools and measurements but physically and emotionally it’s different for every individual living with it.
After wishing diabetes “off the planet” at the ripe age of five-and-some-change my daughter told me: “Mom, you know what diabetes feels like to you, but you don’t know what it feel like to me.” This came on the spurs of a thirty-minute cajoling process convincing her to let me ‘help’ her by injecting a sharp shiny syringe into her flawless, baby soft skin. And remarkably, it turns out – she was right.
Blown away that a five-year-old cum Type 1 diabetes guru could tell me ‘the way things were’, I slumped my shoulders, shed a few tears and told her: “Honey, you are so right – I don’t know.”
And with that emotional undercurrent, we waded through the muck and initial life alterations with chronic disease in a little person. Seven years have rolled by since my daughter’s diagnosis and I continue to learn from her and the countless voices of Type 1 diabetes.
After a diagnosis of a chronic disease it’s easy to fall into the trap of feeling cheated of something – health, happiness, or possibly an imagined future – but trust me, this is no place to reside.
Diabetes struck in the longest, darkest season – twice – rendering the possibility of winter as a season of sadness, and habituation. Instead, we chose to embrace it as one that gives way to spring with its forceful sun in your face attitude, bartering sadness for its ensuing joy.
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