This might not be the most popular opinion of many people, but first I’d like the chance to explain my meaning behind the title.
Having a chronic illness like Diabetes can take up every aspect of your life, if you allow it. From the moment you wake up in the morning, until the moment your head hits the pillow, and let’s face it, even in the middle of the night, you are always constantly checking your blood sugar, giving doses of insulin, watching and counting the carbohydrates you consume and so much more.
Diabetes plays a huge role in your day to day life.
If you focus only on your diabetes at all times, it will begin to consume you. There comes a time to ask yourself, do you want people to feel sorry for you or do you want people to admire you for all you’ve done despite your chronic illness?
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You’re Missing Out
When you focus just on your condition and allow it to overtake your life, you are missing out on so many things. If you are newly diagnosed or have a loved one that is, it may be difficult to see the light at the end of the tunnel right now, and that’s okay. In time as you become accustomed to your new life, you will begin to see that things aren’t so bad. Learning to not play the victim and stress yourself out about every little thing when it comes to diabetes really is all in your mindset.
I’m not going to lie, when my son was diagnosed almost 7 years ago, it was overwhelming, I didn’t know how we were going to manage this, or how we would ever get back to normal. But let me ask you this, what is normal? Because before diabetes you probably still worried about things, or had issues that concerned you. Now those issues might not seem like such a big deal in comparison. Normal is what you make of it. Yeah, you’re not going to go back to the life you once knew, but that doesn’t mean you won’t get back to normal. You just have to adjust your definition of normal and your mindset to go along with it.
I advise reading the following:
Facing the Truth and Finding Your Light
To be brutally honest, diabetes sucks! It does take time, attention and patience to be able to live healthy with diabetes, but that is the keyword. You still can live healthy with diabetes. As long as you are willing to put in the work to manage your blood glucose levels, take your medications, as well as monitoring the foods you eat, per your nutritionist or endocrinologist recommendations, you can live a full, happy life. You don’t have to be tied to a hospital bed, in need of constant medical attention, unable to leave the four walls of your hospital room.
So yes, it sucks, we’d all much rather not have to deal with diabetes. I’d rather not have to worry about my children potentially shortening their lifespan and dealing with complications down the road. But it’s our normal, it’s our truth, this is our lives. So why sulk in self-pity, why not make the best of it?
I made the decision shortly after I got past a few of my diabetes grief stages I was able to accept it and start looking for my light, my shining beacon. Think of it this way, when you experience a loss of a loved one or someone close to you, it hurts, you grieve for their presence that you lost. But you also start to look towards the positive more, to remember the good times you had together. The same goes for diabetes. You need to find your light, your positive.
Every Day is a Gift
Not to take the seriousness away from this disease, because it can be fatal, we all know this and it can happen when you least expect it, even when you do EVERYTHING right. But in order to move forward, to accept your new normal, you need to start seeing ways you can feel blessed each and every day with diabetes. For us, I am thankful each and every morning when my children wake up and I get to see their smiling faces, yeah they may be grumpy smiling faces, but I’m grateful because they are ALIVE. Other people, have unfortunately had to experience loss, and I am beyond blessed that my children are able to wake up, take their day head on and experience life to the fullest that day. And guess what, when they go to bed and they wake up the next day again, ALIVE, I’m just as grateful and thankful for this time.
So happy, healthy, ALIVE children is just one of my lights through the darkness of diabetes. I may be in a different situation than some of you reading this, I myself do NOT have diabetes, my children do. I do not know the experience of living with it, feeling the highs and lows, but what I do know is the life. I know what is involved in intensive diabetes management. My son was diagnosed just 2 days short of 2 months after his 6th birthday, and my daughter (a twin) was diagnosed at the age of 4. As you can see, they both were very young, which meant the entirety of their diabetes care and management was placed on my shoulders. Yes, now that my son is 13 he has a lot more responsibility when it comes to his diabetes care, however that wasn’t always the case. I gradually passed on the torch and responsibility for this (that’s an entirely different article on how I chose to do this). But my daughter is now only 6, she does test herself, but that’s the bulk of the responsibility she has to do. So I KNOW the life, I know what’s involved in diligent care. I get it. But since I may be in a different situation than some of you, my light may not be your light.
You have to find something that you are excited, happy, thrilled about each and every day with diabetes. You cannot stop giving into the feelings of self-pity, woe is me, my life sucks without something standing out, shining in front of you to let you know, you know what, this isn’t so bad.
Diabetes Should NOT Define You
Through the process of raising my children with diabetes, I have never let them use their diabetes as an excuse. They do not get to blame misbehavior, reasons why they can’t do their homework, or participate in school functions on their diabetes. Now, with that being said, I understand that high blood sugars and low blood sugars affect them, and how they affect them. I know that when my son is higher he becomes a bit of a jerk and tends to mouth off more. I know when my daughter is lower she gets whiney and pretty annoying with the high pitch she accomplishes with her voice.
While they don’t get to use their diabetes as an excuse, there are times that I make sure their blood sugar is tested before talking to them or disciplining them on a misbehavior. They can hold off on doing homework when higher because I know this makes concentrating difficult and their mind just doesn’t comprehend things right when they are low either. But overall, in situations where diabetes is not affecting their abilities, it is not allowed to be used as an excuse.
They are not allowed to strive for only what they think they can achieve because of their diabetes. They want to reach to the moon, then all the power to them, because I believe they are strong enough to do it, even with diabetes. Diabetes doesn’t stop you from achieving your goals, it just takes a little longer in preparing for the common occurrences with diabetes and some additional planning, but you still are the same, motivated person you were before you had diabetes, don’t let it take that away from you.
Diabetes steals so much from you as it is, don’t let it take your drive, your initiative, the spark that makes you, you. When you introduce yourself to someone, do you introduce yourself by name, or do you say “Hi, I’m {insert name} with Diabetes?” It would probably seem pretty silly if you did that all the time, people may look at your funny. So why if you don’t associate your name and yourself with diabetes when meeting new people would you let it define who you are? You just happen to be someone with diabetes, you are not diabetes.
Further reading:
No matter the stage of diabetes diagnosis you are in, there is always something you can find to be thankful for.
How has having diabetes, or loving someone with diabetes changed your view on life? What are you thankful for? What is your LIGHT?
TheDiabetesCouncil Article | Reviewed by Dr. Jerry Ramos MD on June 05, 2020
