Diabetes Thoughts

When Betsey was first diagnosed with diabetes, that day, I remember so much of my feelings, the emotion, the clothing I was wearing... It's almost a still picture in my mind. A bunch of stills. And they move slowly through the frames in my head. One after the other. When I sit and think about that day, and the days that followed, I relive the same thing over and over in my head, going through the stills, frame by frame, often shedding a tear or 2 and getting choked up. Seldom do I revisit that time in its entirety. It still, almost 5 years later, is a lot for me to take in all at once.

I read and re-read Betsey's diagnosis story that I wrote as my first post on this blog. It still makes me cry. I know this kid. I know the story. I lived the story. I am living it. With her. And it still brings back raw emotion.

Is it the weight of the emotion from that time; the month of the diagnosis? Is it the reality of the larger picture? Is it the sadness I feel for her and all the things that could happen to her innocent young body? Is it just the idea of it.... diabetes?

Diabetes was something I, like many other people, thought was all about sugar,. You either ate too much of it and your body decided to rebel and get after you, or you just couldn't have it. That was about the extent of what I knew. I don't even know if I had spoken the word "insulin" out loud in my vocabulary once in my life prior to that. Why would I have? It wasn't part of my life. Insulin didn't sit in my fridge or on my counter. Insulin wasn't delivered to my house in a refrigerated styrofoam box from a medical supply company. Insulin wasn't a smell I was familiar with. And now, the smell of it lingers in our house, mentally and physically. Often times I can smell it on Betsey. Is it physcological? Or is it my super-sniffer as Speedo calls it?

When I read that post about Betsey's diagnosis, I think of how ignorant and uneducated I was at the beginning. And how little I knew and thought about her future. It was all then and now. Even today, I don't like to, scratch that, won't allow myself to think too far ahead. College. Can't and won't. I have to live in the now with her and diabetes. It overwhelms me. It saddens me more than I can tell you to think of her growing up with this nonsense.

Did you know that insulin is not a cure? It's a lifeline.

Did you know that people with type 1 are at greater risk for eye problems, like glaucama & cataracts.

Did you know that most people with type 1 will get retinopathy, a disorder of the retina?

Did you know that type 1 diabetics are likely to have foot problems, like neuropathy, which can and will lead to amputation?

Did you know for type 1 diabetics it is almost a death sentence to not have tight control, because prolonged high blood sugar causes damage to nerves and blood vessels faster than normal.

Did you know that type 1 diabetics are at a much greater risk for heart attack and stroke?

Did you know this information is stuff I try not to read or write or think about?