My Diabetes Can Drive a Car Now
On January 5, 2020, my diabetes turned 16.
This year, I didn’t necessarily celebrate a “diaversary,” as I have in years past. I quietly acknowledged it in my head, not out of shame or negligence, but simply because it felt like just another moment.
A diaversary, in the type 1 diabetes community, is a celebration or acknowledgment of good health on the anniversary of your type 1 diabetes diagnosis.
Since 10-years-old, this condition has been a part of every thought I’ve had every moment of the day.
I can’t remember a time where it wasn’t… I wish I were exaggerating, but this is the truth I live as many people with the condition do.
I can’t remember the feeling of not living with it, anyway.
I remember being four-years-old and feeling my grandma’s cold, thin, veiny hand in the summertime when I held mine in hers as she walked my sister and me to the pool across the street to play in the water, then to the nearby park to continue the fun.
I remember the tulips in her front yard and how much she adored them.
I remember her gray, scraggly dog, Gizmo, who wasn’t much bigger than your average household cat. Still, I feared the yips and growls that came from her tiny mouth and the stories of biting.
I remember my grandpa taking us out to dinner every Friday night for seven years until he couldn’t anymore because his Parkinson’s became all too consuming.
Though many of those years I had type 1 diabetes sitting across the table from him and my sister at Culver’s, Fazoli’s, Subway, McDonald’s — you name it, I don’t remember feeling the burden of this condition until I became a teenager and the whole world felt a giant weight on my shoulders.
The type 1 diabetes “honeymoon” phase was over for me once I hit my own 16, and hormones, puberty, and teenage drama set in.
I don’t remember the feeling of relaxation as well.
Being a child, of course, for everyone, is much different than being an adult in terms of feeling relaxed, unstressed, and free from responsibility.
Type 1 diabetes exiled these childhood privileges early on for me.
A person in mostly good health wouldn’t typically consider these privileges, or consider them privileges at all. Though I’ve always had a responsible and accountable personality, I think I might’ve felt less heavy without the condition. I can’t help but wonder how I might’ve lived or turned out without type 1 diabetes, though I live with no regrets or remorse for it today…
There were times in my teenage years I did. I’ve shared this story before. I was mad at my condition and mad at my body. I was mad I have my body. I was mad at what type 1 diabetes was doing to my body.
Still, even during this difficult period, I never let type 1 diabetes hold me back. My goals have always been high.
Instead of appreciating my body for what it is, accepting and embracing its every flaw, working with it instead of against it to create a happier, healthier, and more positive self, I tried to run from it and suffered moments of self-inflicted negligence that interfered with my health and wellbeing.
I suffered from typical teenage misperceptions around body image, self-acceptance, and self-worth with the skew of type 1 diabetes to throw an additional curveball. I remember being really happy until about midway through my freshman year when my confidence was shaken by comments about my changing body type, talent in the choir, and disinterest in dating.
I’ll never forget someone close to me accusing, “You don’t seem to like yourself very much.”
Ouch.
I learned from this self-mistreatment and distorted life perception many years later as I grew into myself and continue to at 26-years-old.
There was a time I wouldn’t have shared this story.
There was a time I would’ve shied away from my condition and embracing others with it.
There was a time I would’ve bowed my head in sadness and ache.
There was a time where I wouldn’t attend JDRF meetings and consider riding a 100-mile bike ride to raise money for a cure, and to keep showing myself I can do anything I set my mind to and work hard to earn.
There was a time where I would’ve ignored the fact that I had this condition at all.
There was a time I didn’t have this condition…
Now, there is a time I hope for a cure.
There is a time I hope for insulin price caps.
There is a time I advocate.
There is a time I write for my community and myself.
There is a time I fight.
I will always fight.
This condition is a pain in the ass. There’s no sugar-coating that, excuse the phrase.
There are still moments of pain, but now, instead of feeling a victim, I am able to laugh at myself more and rise above. I know when to take moments for self-care and when to push myself. I am a manager. I am a survivor. I am absolutely not a victim, and I do not feel sorry for myself with this condition.
I feel the need to plan more and be routine to avoid fluctuations in blood sugar levels, see patterns, and manage better, but I still try to find room for spontaneity — life’s too short to be so calculated and transactional (and boring).
I still have times where I can get out of my head more with this disease. I can relax more. I can enjoy it more. I can have fun more. I can be less defensive and sensitive.
At least 90% of the time, I’d like to believe I rise above and push past the challenges.
I am still working on the relaxation part of this condition and life itself, but as much difficulty as type 1 diabetes has inflicted on my life, I have embraced the good it's shaped for me at 26.
I am braver.
I am more accepting.
I am more empathetic.
I am more open.
I am more mindful.
I am more determined.
I am more perceptive.
I wouldn’t wish this condition on my worst enemy, not to say I have one. (I don’t.) But, I wouldn’t take away the life lessons it’s given me and encourages daily.
I still have ample growing to do with myself and this condition, as we all do in life. So long as we’re living and learning, going and growing, we’re not wasting the time we have.
And this is another great gift this disease has shown me over the years — gratitude. I know how fragile life is. I don’t waste a minute. If I say I am going to do something, I do it.
In reflection of this disease, 16 years in, I offer these reflections.
I encourage you to keep going. Keep believing in yourself. Keep working on yourself. Be accountable for yourself. Don’t assume responsibility where it isn’t yours.
Be loving to yourself and others. Be kind. Show kindness to yourself and this condition, or whatever difficulty you’re managing in this life. Show kindness to others.
Keep going towards the light at the end of long tunnels. Some journeys are more daunting and daring than others, but nothing worth having ever came easy, and this is especially true of our health, happiness, and quality of life.
Being alive is a great gift. The sooner you realize this, whether you’re in great health or poor health, the better your life will be and the more easily you’ll be able to live it in gratitude.
My diabetes doesn’t need a car at 16 years of inhabitance. My type 1 diabetes will have more trials and errors, more evolution with age, more technology, more friendships and fragility, more love and hope.
My type 1 diabetes, at 16 years in, has me, and that’s not always something I was able to say. It has me to watch for it, to care for it, to nurture it, to be patient with it, to be kind to it.
It doesn’t have me “by the balls,” or any other colloquialism, but it has me as a caretaker. It has me as its lifeline, and my life is mine, not my disease’s.
I’m living for me.
The perception of your difficulty is what matters in life. You assign your own purpose. You assign what has value in your life. You get to decide. You always have a choice about how to live your life and how to see it.
See it with your eyes wide open and a heart to match.
You will never regret the chances you take. The only thing that holds you back in life is you and you alone.
Live for you.
