12 Years Ago...

Dear Diabetes,

I was nineteen when we discovered you. I thought I needed glasses because I woke up one day and could no longer see the whiteboard during class. That symptom was obvious, the others were easier to ignore. It didn’t occur to me that the thirst I had wasn’t normal. Gallons of water. A thirst I could never quench.

You tricked me. I had convinced myself I was gaining weight. I was eating EVERYTHING in sight, topping it off with dessert, and still I didn’t feel full. I was starving. Then you wouldn’t let me exercise anymore. I could hardly make it up the four flights of stairs without stopping to catch my breath. I had to give up running because I just didn’t have the energy. Even if I had a full-length mirror I don’t know that I would have seen myself turning into a skeleton. I had dropped 25 pounds with no exercise and eating more food than I ever had before in my life. That just couldn’t be possible.

But then Luke figured you out. After our long drive home from Santa Cruz he looked up all my symptoms in a medical book. The phone rang at 2 am, “Laura, go wake up your parents, I think you have diabetes.” My mom laid in bed with me until I fell asleep that night. I think she was scared to leave me. My sisters cried the next morning when they saw me. You had changed me. I looked sick, really sick.

I don’t remember any tears during the doctors’ appointments. There was the orange the nurse used to show me how to give an injection. I think I poked the orange once and then I had to do it to myself. It wasn’t a choice. You were here to stay. And overnight my life had changed.

At first you intrigued me. This new life full of injections and blood sugars. New gadgets, new rules, numbers, insulin, glucose tabs. Explaining it to everyone. I remember bits and pieces of the rest of that Thanksgiving weekend. Never would eating and celebrating be the same for me.

When I drove away from my parents’ house, back up north to college, I had a knot in my stomach. I hoped I could do it, but I wasn’t sure that I could. You came with a lot of rules. A lot of things to remember, and what if I forgot them? “Never be without your supplies. Be ready for a low blood sugar. Watch what you eat. Don’t forget to test, test, test. Be sure to tell the other students living with you. Don’t be a closet diabetic. You want people to know how to help you if they need to.” The fear started to set in. I felt alone. So scared and so alone. I wasn’t sure how I would do it on my own.

But I did. I had moments of panic. Crying in the shower, or alone in bed as I tried to fall asleep. Sobbing on the phone with my mom, unable to speak because of the choking sobs. The carefree life I had known as a nineteen year-old college student was gone. The fear of going blind, amputations, low blood sugars, kidney failure, and maybe even death was part of what you brought into my life. And I SO badly wanted to have a family one day. I couldn’t bare the thought of you taking that from me.

And so I worked hard at taking care of you. And it paid off. More than you could ever know, it’s paid off.

But you’ve made me work for it, and it never gets easy. Twelve years later, and you still surprise me, frustrate me, scare me, and so often overwhelm me. I wish you would decide to leave or just disappear for a day. I’d settle for just one day.

~Laura