Diabetes is Not a Death Sentence

“They told me I had to lose 50 lbs,” she said. “That’s the weight of a kindergartener!”

I wasn’t supposed to be hearing this conversation, but the media room at our church is only so big, and there were only three of us in there. I pretended not to listen as I signed the copy sheet, but out of the corner of my eye I watched her body language, impressed at how non-chalantly she talked about this obviously major life change. She was still smiling, still joking around. And then I heard the words that told me I knew more about this conversation than I’d originally thought.

“So, do you have to check your blood? Don’t you just, like, poke your finger?”

She nodded. “Twice a day,” she said with a sigh.

Then, despite any reservations I had about admitting I’d been eavesdropping, I jumped in.

“Diabetes?” I asked.

She nodded and told me she’d just been diagnosed.

I smiled. “Me too,” I admitted. “Almost six years ago now.”

“Really?” I saw her wall crumble. Her façade wasn’t hiding anything major, and she didn’t burst into tears, but what I did see through the cracks was the relief that she wasn’t the only one dealing with this particular challenge. So you know, her look seemed to say.

She made my copies and I asked if I could cut them in half with the paper cutter. “Oh! I didn’t even think about that! I’m losing my mind!”

I laughed and assured her that losing your mind is, in fact, a scientific side effect of unstable blood sugar. “I have a hard time focusing on anything when my blood sugar is out of whack. So if I seem scatter-brained to you, now you know why!”

I told her I had to get back to the children, but I’d be back and we’d talk more. After church I found her in the same place, now joined by her husband. What could I say about Diabetes in the three minutes I had before my three-year-old turned Rambo on me?

I spouted off some of my favorite products (including how to get a 30-piece chocolate chip fix in for only 9 carbohydrates), reassured her that eventually it just becomes part of the routine and you hardly even notice anymore, and added in the usual plea to not judge me by what I eat. (For some reason, people think that if you are diabetic sugar can kill you. Well, yes, it can. But it can also save my life. And my sanity. So don’t judge. Please.)

Now that I’ve had a few days to think about it, this is what I’d wished I’d told her, and it’s the same thing a kind nurse told me nearly seven years ago (I’ve had time to do the math too):

Diabetes is not a death sentence.

Yes, it feels like it at first, when they tell you all the myriad of changes you need to make and it feels like your life has gone spiraling out of control. I remember telling one of my best friends about my diagnosis and her first reaction was, “But…bread and sugar…those are your favorite things!”

But, eventually, reading nutrition labels on everything and counting carbohydrate servings in 15 gram amounts seems as natural as putting your hair in a ponytail. To someone who has never done it before, it feels messy and impossible, but with a little practice, you can whip that mane up into the perfect (or at least passable) messy bun in three seconds. The same with a meal at a restaurant, or figuring out an acceptable portion size, or adjusting to the changes that must be made, simply because your body tells you it must be done.

I remember going out to eat with my mom and a few other relatives two months after my diagnosis. Everyone was ordering pie for dessert. I declined. My mom suggested that it would be okay for me to have some, since I’d only had a salad, but in my panicked head, all I saw was the disintegration of my feet and eyesight. “If no pie now means attending my daughter’s wedding later,” I told her, “then I’ll pass on the pie.”

I didn’t even have a daughter then. Now I do, and the other day, she turned to me in front of her little brother and asked, “Can we have some P-I-E?”

She didn’t know she’d just spelled an actual dessert. She just knows what it means when her parents look at each other over her head and spell out T-R-E-A-T. And she knew she didn’t want to share with her brother, just like I rarely want to share with her.

So we have sugar. And dessert. And I bake cookies with my children, and sometimes my husband and I have brownies at midnight. But, you should also know, there are days when I wake up groggy and the feeling never goes away. Days when my blood sugar levels make me nauseated, but try explaining that to anyone and not having them immediately jump to the conclusion that you are pregnant.

And-oh!- pregnancy.

Sometimes it feels that my life as a diabetic would be completely normal if I weren’t of childbearing age. Some days (most days) I don’t even check my blood sugar. I can tell you what range I’m in based on how I’m feeling, and for the most part I know how to handle my highs and lows. But when I’m pregnant, everything I thought I knew about my disease and my body flies out the window. I can’t put into words exactly how hard diabetic pregnancy is for me, and I won’t waste your time with my complaints of poking every single finger I have in a 48-hour-period, giving myself hundreds of shots, attending more than 50 “routine” doctor appointments in a seven-month stretch…everyone has a woe story when it comes to motherhood. Mine is my diabetes.

But, as I said before, diabetes is not a death sentence.

I still have my babies. I still function and run a household. I have an understanding, thoughtful husband, friends who keep me laughing, and active children that don’t let me slow down too much. Granted, I’m not able to do every single thing I want to do, but then again, what woman has actually ever been able to manage that?

I have diabetes, but it doesn’t have me.