A Diabetes Life....

A diabetes life is 24X7, 7 days a week, 365 days a year with no vacation days or time out for good behavior and is often measured in units, numbers, and division involving the numbers 12 and 15.

Our days are based on experiencing highs and lows, but much like Hobbits, we prefer to exist somewhere in the middle.

People with diabetes are strong in spirit, so much so that poking; injecting, and infusing ourselves becomes old hat, except when it doesn’t.

A life with diabetes is not a life where one can never travel light. All sorts of extras are required in order for us to make it out the door.

Many who live with diabetes exhibit OCD like behaviors due to the extras they are required to carry and we check, check, check, and check again.

We continually wonder: did we bring enough? Enough insulin, batteries, test strips, glucotabs, batteries, larabars, needles and infusion sets.

We spend an awful lot of time wonder about carb counts and extended duel wave bolus options.

PWDs wonder if the “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” policy applies to diabetes and our careers, our friends and potential dates.

On occasion, PWDs engage in what some would consider high-risk behaviors involving noodle-based foods such as Chinese and spaghetti.

Our collective wish is to own our disease, help others to do the same and reach the highest levels of “Blood Sugar Nirvana".

Our ultimate goal is to see a cure for diabetes in our lifetime.

BUT sometimes we forget that a life lived with diabetes is indeed a life being lived - and before the summer of 1921 (insulin’s discovery) and January 1922, when Leonard Thompson became the first PWD to be injected with insulin, that just wasn’t the case.