At what point do we ever let go?
I was in the bathroom getting ready and was unable to get to my phone. In a matter of about 30 seconds my cell phone went off twice with messages, rang once, and my hotel room phone rang twice.
Kaitlyn and I were traveling this weekend with the CWD conference; Focus on Technology in Virginia. With my heart racing a mile a minute, I was convinced something was wrong, and raced out of the bathroom to find out that it was just a text message I had sent that a friend was trying to clarify.
No one did anything wrong. But I panicked.
It took me a while to relax and I had to focus the anger that I felt toward my good friend who was trying to contact me. But that was not the problem. The problem was with me. It caught me at a moment when I knew nothing wrong could ever happen to Kaitlyn or Rob; they are old enough now….right?
It was a big error in judgement on my part to think that diabetes would ever be ‘done with them’. It won’t be until we cure it once and for all. We cannot build this false sense of security, ever, that we are ‘out of the woods.’ Something will happen to remind us otherwise. Today was my reminder.
Clearly knowing that it was February 3rd, “23”, the reminder of that fateful day when a friend lost her son. Perhaps I was ‘on edge’ to begin with, but I dropped my guard. I should know better. I panicked at a series of calls that were nothing more than a series of calls. But it was the perfect reflection furthering the point that we should always be on guard with our kids; and always in touch with them.
We need to cure diabetes. I had a great conversation with Ed Damiano this weekend and he made a point that I found absolutely fabulous; the ‘artificial pancreas’ by the very nature of its name, will tell you that it is not a cure: “Artificial”. A management tool at best. Although it might be a good one, time will tell. He is working on an extremely promising management tool called a bionic pancreas, as he calls it. All much anticipated tools for the diabetes tool kit.
So to me; a cure must be a cure must be a cure. We need to re-find and rekindle that focus as a community and challenge those working toward that end to work expeditiously; tomorrow is too far away.
Nothing else will do.
I am a diabetes dad.
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2 replies on “My Heart was Not Ready…..Does it Happen to You?”
What a great post, Tom, though I’m sorry about the brief panic you experienced. Seems like so often, we do get lulled into that false sense of security… only to have diabetes (or anything, really) somehow throw us back into reality and show us how fragile things really are. Glad all was OK. Also like what Ed said… so true. The tech and treatment is all artificial, but the consequences of D aren’t… we so need to move forward toward that cure. Thanks for posting this. Hope it was a good CWD Tech event – from what I’ve read online, certainly sounds like it was!
Amen Tom – a cure is the only thing we will accept!!!!!!! Someday my friend 🙂