In Which I'm (Sort Of) Thankful for Diabetes

I'm sitting in a comfy chair at my parents' house, looking at the woods out the window and listening to the rest of my family play Ticket to Ride at the kitchen table so my brother's dog doesn't attack the gameboard (yes, we did decide to bring that bag of board games). Chicken and vegetables (prepared by Squirrelboy with a little help from Grandma) are roasting in the oven (no, we don't eat turkey on Thanksgiving, call me unAmerican if you must :)). Pies are on the counter wafting their scents temptingly toward me. "Stuffing" (which has never actually been stuffed into anything) is cooking in the electric skillet.

In short, it's a typical Thanksgiving day for our family, which finds me reflecting on what I have to be thankful for. There's a lot. I grew up in a wonderful family with two parents who are still happily married after 53 years. I'm married to an amazing man and we have two healthy children together. My physical needs have always been provided for, along with a large number of my wants. I could go on in this manner, but what I really want to reflect on today is what I'm thankful for in the realm of diabetes.

First of all, I'm thankful that insulin was discovered and refined for safe human use. Remember, type 1 diabetes was universally fatal until that time. I'm thankful that scientists continued to develop new insulin formulations and are still doing so. Because of this, diabetics no longer need to "feed their insulin" and eat on strict schedule that adult diabetics today remember from their childhoods. If they choose to, they can eat whenever and whatever they want to eat.

I'm thankful for the many tools available in our time for delivering insulin and monitoring blood sugar. If people need to or choose to use syringes, they have small one-use syringes that measure as little as half a unit. People no longer have to boil their glass syringes and sharpen their needles. Those who use injections can also use insulin pens that deliver a particular amount of insulin with just a twist of a dial. It's not necessary to carry both syringes and a vial and draw up just the right amount. Then, of course there are multiple types of insulin pumps available that deliver insulin in tiny increments at just the push of a button, or in the case of the Tandem pump Kittygirl uses, the touch of a screen. There is even an inhaled insulin on the market.

Speaking of monitoring blood sugar, I'm thankful our family doesn't have to carry around something resembling a chemistry set for measuring with limited accuracy the amount of sugar in Kittygirl's urine. There are blood glucose meters that test blood sugar with just a tiny drop within a few seconds. Even better, Kittygirl wears a sensor that shows a constant graph of her blood sugar so we can always have an eye on how it's moving. She can even decorate the transmitter with a cute dragonfly sticker and hold on the sensor with a blue cat sticker. Plus, she can wear the pump and the phone for her tech in cute custom made pouches.

We have a respected pediatric endocrinology office in our city that's just 20 minutes from our house. When we didn't get along well with the practitioner we were first assigned to, we could easily switch to another one. Our practitioner lets us manage Kittygirl's diabetes in the way we have determined works best for her and for our family and doesn't insist that we manage in exactly the way we were first shown.

Our kid doesn't hate diabetes. She just sees it as one of many factors in her life. She isn't ashamed for her friends to know she has diabetes, and her friends are still happy to invite her to birthday parties and playdates.

I've never been concerned that my child will be in danger at school because the school staff doesn't understand diabetes or doesn't care. I've never had to call an extra meeting because my child's 504 plan isn't being followed. I've never had a teacher who doesn't want my child in their class because of the extra work diabetes can bring.

Finally, I'm thankful for the many amazing people I've met in the diabetes community - locally, online, and through the Friends for Life conference. I never fully appreciated just how generous and supportive people could be until I was introduced to the diabetes community. Kittygirl has said that she doesn't mind having diabetes because otherwise she would never have met one of her friend for life.

If I had been given the opportunity to choose exactly what my life would look like it would not look like this. I wouldn't have chosen diabetes. I also wouldn't have chosen to have two kids six years apart with three losses in between. However, when I sit back to reflect on my life, I'm not really sure the life I would have chosen would have been better. Despite what it can look like on Facebook, no one actually lives an ideal life free from struggles and challenges. All we can do is try to embrace what we have and move forward the best we can within the challenges.

To end, for your viewing pleasure, here's a picture from the back of Kittygirl that she asked me to post. She was riding the horse at Meijer, where we went to buy food for Thanksgiving dinner when we realized she was going to be really hungry if we only had the food we had been planning to serve. Not because of diabetes, but because she's one of the pickiest 8 year olds I've ever known :). You can even see her cute pump pouch making an appearance.