I have two dogs. Jessie and Dusty. At some point while playing with them, they will decide they have had enough and will just sit and look at me. They do as they wish. They are well-trained dogs and, really, are very good dogs. Almost anyone who meets them comments on how wonderful they are to be around.
I could spend an eternity trying to make them meow like a cat; hiss like a cat; and climb the window curtains like a cat. But I would never be successful because they are not cats. It is not in their nature to do these things. Would I consider them stupid or failures because they didn’t? Of course not.
Einstein wrote, “Judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree and it will live its whole life believing it is stupid.”
Did you ever hear that phrase? This space is not new to discussing the idea that an A1C is a measuring stick or a gauge to help us in our battle against diabetes. If I read, one more time, about the anxiety of a parent who is about to see their doctor and has a fear because the discussion will revolve around their child’s present A1C—I’m going to scream.
It was never in our nature to be so guided by a number until our child was diagnosed. I know many people who could not ever pass a test when it comes to many of the sciences but can take a car apart and put it back together with their eyes closed. Never would we say that they were a failure, would we?
A1C was never in our nature. It was never supposed to be part of our lives. Do not let it take over yours now that diabetes has become part of your household.
Especially to the newly diagnosed families, from someone who has had to deal with over 100 A1C results (you are free to do the math how long it has been in our house); look at it, use it to adjust and move on. NOTHING MORE.
My favorite part of Mr. Einstein’s comment is that it is clear he is speaking to the outside world about judging that fish. It almost seems like the silliest comment ever, doesn’t it? But yet we do it to ourselves. We call ourselves failures on something we should never have had to deal with in the first place. Like a fish climbing a tree.
When we stop doing it to ourselves, we will not let anyone else do it to us either. It is a number. An important number. Get it, look at it, adjust, move on. Period. We have more important things to make us feel silly, like me teaching my dog to ‘meow’.
I am a diabetes dad.
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