{"id":38504,"date":"2015-11-24T08:38:51","date_gmt":"2015-11-24T13:38:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/asweetlife.org\/?post_type=feature&p=38504"},"modified":"2016-01-12T06:28:11","modified_gmt":"2016-01-12T11:28:11","slug":"healthy-but-not-the-truth-about-living-with-diabetes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/asweetlife.org\/?p=38504","title":{"rendered":"Healthy, But Not: The Truth About Living With Diabetes"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n

It\u2019s National Diabetes Awareness Month (NDMA) and people with diabetes and those who love them (that\u2019s my category) are busy sharing special profile pics, facts of the day, and other information to get the world to understand that diabetes matters, and we need a cure. Now.<\/p>\n

But I have a confession to make: I recently realized that as much as I want the world to be aware, I needed a little dose of awareness myself.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not that I don\u2019t get it.<\/p>\n

Raising a child from a very young age through adulthood with diabetes on board (18 years and counting of diabetes life for us now), you see it all. You feel it all. You learn it all. But something happens over those years. Our sense of survival kicks in. And by survival, I mean our sense of finding a way to live a strong, healthy emotional life with diabetes on board.<\/p>\n

That takes fortitude, patience, and Jedi Mind Tricks. And okay, a wee bit of denial. I\u2019m going to be honest here: while I am a passionate advocate for the cause and while I raise a lot of money for cure research, over the years I fell into a place where I thought, \u201cGosh, maybe we\u2019re okay.\u201d<\/p>\n

We are okay, but we also are not.\u00a0Which is where NDAM comes in. Because while I work hard to make others aware, I need to be a little more aware myself.<\/p>\n

Those of us living a long time with diabetes up close in our lives (either patient or caretaker) are a little bit like a dormant volcano. On the surface, we\u2019re lovely and majestic and really, nothing that would ever hint of something bad. But way, way down below there\u2019s something active and dangerous; something that could blow up any moment. The problem is, we don\u2019t always want folks to know about that lower layer.<\/p>\n

For me, it stemmed from wanting my child to grow up strong, brave and living a semi-carefree life, diabetes be damned. To guide her toward this goal, I had to walk the tightrope of understanding the immediacy and concern of the situation while embracing too the need to make it all seem okay. Quite an act.
\nAnd one that, over time and as my daughter aged, fooled me into a state of semi-unawareness.<\/p>\n

\"Moira<\/a>That all changed over the summer because I did the 100-mile JDRF Ride to Cure Diabetes side by side with my daughter. And in those miles, through her struggles, I became newly aware –reborn if you will — in my grasp of just how much this all truly matters.<\/p>\n

In those miles, I watched her \u2013 up close for the first time in a long while \u2013 live her life with diabetes on board. When adrenaline made her blood sugar skyrocket, it was like she was pedaling through mud. She struggled to even go, as she pushed herself to move along a flat road. And you know what? She did it with a smile on her face and while cracking jokes, and while figuring out a dose to bring herself down.<\/p>\n

As I watched it, I was floored at just how much I had let this awareness evade me. I\u2019d positive-thought myself into a false world where I somehow, sometimes thought: She’s okay.<\/p>\n

But the hard truth is that smile or not \u2013 it\u2019s not okay for a person to have to live with a disease that\u2019s\u00a0constantly assaulting her so that every minute of every day means something different. It\u2019s not okay for a person to have to be so strong and so determined that they can smile through medical moments that would send us mere mortals home sick in a snap. It\u2019s not okay for us to still not have treatments good enough to at least give people with diabetes all a break a few hours a day. It\u2019s just not. \u00a0Four years ago Jessica Apple, editor of ASweetLife<\/a>, wrote, “If you want to educate people about diabetes this month, don\u2019t do it by trying to prove that we are equal in all ways. We aren\u2019t equal. Trying to prove that we are the same and putting on our brave faces may, in fact, be our fatal flaw. Wheelchair users don\u2019t get cities to put in curb ramps by pretending they can walk.”<\/p>\n

I’ve also become re-aware of all my child and I have done. As we rode along, I\u2019ll admit it, I swelled with pride at how we\u2019d molded an awesome life out of a terrible hand dealt. I teared up at how she \u2013 and I \u2013 have always responded to the horror of all this by turning it around and making it all okay on the surface. I\u2019m proud of her and I\u2019m proud of me.<\/p>\n

So as NDAM nears its close, I ask each of you who is living this life well to take a moment and become newly aware. Don’t ever stop rocking life, but to remember that whether you are the person with diabetes or someone supporting that person, you deserve better.<\/p>\n

I won\u2019t cry about it and I\u2019ll never change our outlook but this year, I\u2019m newly aware and ready to take on diabetes until there is none. My volcano, in other words, is smoking again. Let my reconnection with awareness blow the roof of diabetes. For good.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When adrenaline made her blood sugar skyrocket, it was like she was pedaling through mud. She struggled to even go, as she pushed herself to move along a flat road. And you know what? 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