Is SUCK IT UP too Rough to Ask……..What’s the Alternative?

I’m not so sure if it is the social media being so readily available or if people just like to gripe more……..not exactly sure which it is.

I read people who are so exhausted because they stayed up all night………….again with a child’s low blood sugar; I read people who are distraught because they hide in the parking lot so their child can partake in after-school activities; I read people who have had their life turned completely upside down because of their child’s diagnosis of t1d……..yeah……..and?

Children being diagnosed with diabetes is not a brand new ‘thing’.  It’s been happening for a long, long time.  Do you know what the next step was, we dealt with it.  Plain and simple; whatever it took, we dealt with.  The new normal is not just what happens in your child’s life, it is what happens in your life too,  The key word here is…….normal……..albeit…..a new normal.

Now every now and again, needing to let off steam or to find a shoulder that understand you to accept your tears of anguish; is not what I’m referring to here.  It’s the ‘every-single-sacrifice’ being shared once or twice a day as to how horrendous a life has become that just seems like a bunch of wasted energy.  Any parent that had a child with this disease has had to deal with the anguish with what comes with it.  I don’t mean to sound so cold as to say, “suck it up”, but I also do not understand the idea that one’s world can never function again because of this disease.  If you do that, diabetes wins.  Don’t let it win.
(To clarify–I’m not minimizing this disease and I’m surely NOT SAYING ‘suck it up’—-I am saying that the disease should not define our lives.  As my daughter stated at a very young age, “….I have diabetes, diabetes is not who I am…..”.  My point is don’t let it define you)

We all did WHAT IT TOOK for our kids to have as close to a normal life as possible and for the majority, our kids never knew what we did to get them there.  And if our kids never knew it, we certainly did not live our lives online.  I get it. Diabetes sucks…..it sure does.  But what sucks worse is when you show that it controls your life………because if it looks like it controls your life, it does control your life.

Kick it in the butt out the back door.

Now as I said, every now and again, we all need  release and a melt down and surely we earned it when that happens.  But not a constant defeat.  Not a constant life of woe.  Your kids will pick up on that faster than you think they will.  Many of us have always lived by what they do after diagnosis is what they would have done before diagnosis.  Adjustments? Sometimes but get your child in the game, in the play, in the after school club…….challenge yourself to get them there without anyone knowing what you did to get them there.  It’s about them.

Hey things could always be worse……….you could have two kids with t1d. Did that, done that…….and you know what……..we lived by the same philosophy…..try it.

I am a diabetes dad.
Please visit my Diabetes Dad FB Page and hit ‘like’.

Editor’s note: Updated for clarification at 8:00 pm on 8/10/19