Living With Diabetes Isn't Easy... Thankfully, Complaining About It Is

If I had a brand new beta cell for every time somebody told me, "I couldn't do that" in response to my telling them about having Diabetes, I would no longer have Type 1 Diabetes.

I do not know why people tell this to me. Do they think that it makes me feel better? Is it pity? Sympathy? Just a nice way to say, "Man, I'm so glad I don't have to deal with what you do"?

It does not make me feel better when people say this to me. It does not make me feel like a superior human being in the fact that I handle Type 1 Diabetes. It does not make me glow with self-satisfaction. It makes me feel separate from "normal" people. It makes me feel like I'm some nerdy freak who actually enjoys counting every single carb of the food that goes into my mouth, saying no to alcohol and testing my blood sugar multiple times a day. In fact, it really just make me want to strangle whoever it is who just said that to me and say, "Don't you understand??"

Still, I have to be fair. If someone had actually sat me down and explained to me the life of a Type 1 Diabetic before I ever got diagnosed, it is very likely that I would have said the very same thing. I couldn't do it. Needles were my biggest fear in the entire world. I could imagine no worse fate than to have ever gotten diagnosed with such a needle-loving disease. The one time somebody tried to test my blood sugar I ran screaming through the house at the top of my lungs until they finally gave up and left me in peace. And if I had known the bigger picture, that there is so much more to Type 1 Diabetes than just testing one's blood sugar and giving injections, I don't think I could have ever possibly fathomed having to cope with such a formidable illness.

But Diabetes didn't care about my inhibitions. For some reason forever unbeknownst to me, I was one of the few destined to have a faulty pancreas. It was not a choice - it just was. Which leads me to my point: saying I couldn't do it to living with Diabetes, to me, is an illogical statement. It doesn't matter whether or not you think that you could do it. The fact of the matter is, choosing to live a life with Type 1 Diabetes is not an option. It was both the hardest and simplest choice that I ever had to make: Life, or death.
Diabetes is a terrible disease. I never wanted to have to live with Diabetes. When I was in the hospital, I spent a long time thinking to myself, sure, living with Diabetes was possible, but what kind of life would that be? Was it one truly even worth living?

And you know what? It was. Life became immeasurably harder than I could have ever imagined, but I had been given only one life to live, one life to make the best of, and I couldn't let Diabetes ruin that for me.

I didn't choose a life with Diabetes, it chose me. Counting my carbs, giving myself daily injections, keeping glucose tabs on hand for lows, handling the physical, mental and emotional turmoil of an incurable disease, testing my blood sugar often, attempting to act the part of a pancreas in the place of the one that failed me... it's all part of the inconvenience that I must now deal with in order to enjoy the things that other people without my illness can enjoy. I will never get used to my life with Diabetes, nor will I ever enjoy the burden that it places on my shoulders. But I have adapted, and accepted, my condition - when before, if faced with the same obstacle, I would have never thought that I could. There is something about having Type 1 Diabetes that makes you realize how fragile and weak of a person you are; it happens when you must deal with the reality of your mortality so often on a daily basis. But having Diabetes, and conquering it, also teaches you valuable lessons and makes you so much more of a stronger person than you were before. Diabetes has completely changed my life, has changed my personality, has changed so many things about the person that I once was. But not all in bad ways. Diabetes has shown me that I can do things that I never thought that I could. It places fear in my life but gives me the strength to conquer my fears. Type 1 Diabetes has shown me that if something truly matters to you, it doesn't matter what stands in your way. You'll face it; if only to be able to hold on to that one precious thing that you treasure so dearly which, for me, is life.

Life with Type 1 Diabetes is harder than a life without, but I think that if others were faced with my disease, they would make the same choice that I did: which is to not only survive with Diabetes, but to thrive.

Kudos to my father for not only that last line, but for inspiring me to live, even with the struggle of having Type 1 Diabetes.
(And thanks to my awesome mom, too, who helped me learn how to kick Diabetes in the butt!)