Go read Sarah’s story. I defy you not to get emotional about it.
O has had diabetes for nine years. I used to get very upset every year when her anniversary rolled around, but the last few years, I’ve hardly thought of it. It’s just our lives. It’s what we do every day. She doesn’t complain about it much. Sometimes I think she thinks it’s kind of cool to have diabetes because she gets to discuss medical things with her friends. It makes her feel important. (She also thinks it’s cool when she gets a cut or gets sick or injures herself in some way. Future Hypochodriac Drama Queen over here. She’s going to be a doctor’s worst nightmare.) It makes her feel like she’s got something over her friends, something that makes her cool.
I like that. That sounds weird, doesn’t it? But I like that she thinks that diabetes makes her cool. She doesn’t think it makes her weird or less than anyone else. It makes her cool. She gets to wear a pump – she thinks that awesome. Her friends think it’s awesome.
I know that there will be times that diabetes will hinder her, or that she will percieve it as a hindrance, real or imagined. We’ve had those times and I know we’ll have them again. But right now, she’s just fine with her disease. More than fine. She owns it. She’s proud of how she handles her disease, of how she handles life with her disease and I’m proud of her.
She’s just living in the now, enjoying her life as it is now, not worrying about the future, not thinking about what might have been or what she might be missing, but just enjoying the now. And right now, that’s all that matters.
Major Bedhead 