You know it is so unfair.
I try to remind myself (very often) that in as much as I try to write about what it is like having diabetes in our home, I still do not know what it is like to have it inside me. It breaks my heart when I read that one of our friends in this community is going through something that challenges them either by complications, or just being tired of having diabetes 24/7/365 that takes a toll on them.
They have it so unfair.
Since I write from a perspective as a dad, these instances serve to remind me of a really BIG thing once again; I do not have diabetes.
We may have sleepless nights, we may be exhausted, we may be frustrated, we may hate what life has delivered, but remember this always; it pales in comparison to waking up every morning knowing that you have diabetes; and that you must deal with diabetes.
I get it. I’m a parent. Our kids with diabetes do not know what it is like to be a parent unless fate really plays a cruel trick on them and they have a child also with diabetes. For much of ‘diabetes’ –been there done that. Doing it for over 20 years and now with two kids. But recently I was reading about someone I highly respect and the news of a complication recently added to the list of things already being dealt with on a daily basis.
I stared at the screen after I was done reading. Tears rolled down my cheeks.
I cannot fool myself; I have no idea what it is like to actually be the one living with diabetes.
Now I may think I know a lot. But truth is, I don’t; because I don’t have it.
I do not know what that fear is to be told “Now you have this; or that new complication.”
I do not know what it means to try to push fear down to a place so I can live every day while managing something I could never have wished upon myself.
I may have a fear that I may walk into a bedroom one day and not find one of my children breathing (there I said it) but that MUST PALE GREATLY to brushing my teeth at night, looking into the mirror, and wondering if I would wake up the next day.
Most people with Type 1 will tell you that they deal with it and they cannot allow themselves to live life in such a manner……BUT IT MUST play on their minds from time to time. It must.
So when I say that our kids are heroes with what they go through every day…….I mean it; but know this: I really have no clue what it is like.
And it is THIS reason why I will fight as long as I have a breath in me to get us to a cure and just as important; to help my kids have the best and most up-to-date tools and information available. It is the least I can do……..they have enough to worry about.
I am a diabetes dad.
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