I worry sometimes about most of us.  I worry because I think having diabetes is really difficult and I see people in the “spotlight” that is the internet and I don’t see their struggles as often as I feel my own.

It’s a little hard to describe.

I worry about the people who are lurking around reading blogs and tweets and random snippets of the lives of others with diabetes.  I worry they see the public successes of these few people and feel badly about themselves and their own diabetes.

It’s kind of a mess.

In a lot of ways, I say “congratulations” and “great job” to those people online.  To myself, I often say “oh crap.”

And I’d say I’m one fairly in tune with myself and my disease.  So I extra worry about those who may not be as accepting of the ups and downs of living with diabetes, or even of life in general.

I know people want to point to others as a way to show us we can do it.  Just look at Sue: she’s doing it!  Look at Joe: he’s doing it!  It’s possible!  But sometimes it doesn’t feel like encouragement. 

Sometimes it feels entirely different.

Since diabetes is such a personal disease and it matters who we each are, what we do, when we do it, what insulin or medications we take, what the weather is, how our immune system is working each day, what our hormones are doing, what we eat, etc that it is almost impossible to compare apples to apples. 

Yet the numbers we deal with (A1cs and regular BGs) are dangerously identical.  Dangerous to us because they promote a very simple comparison between our own numbers and the numbers of complete strangers.

Clearly, I haven’t solved how to tackle this issue in my own life or in the lives of others.  So I do what I can: I recognize it, I think about it, and I do my best for me and my life with diabetes.

And, I worry too.

I hope everyone is able to recognize that a tweet of a number doesn’t tell us a bit of a thing.  It tells us at one moment someone had a certain blood glucose reading.  Or, for one 2-3 month segment of time someone had a certain range. 

It certainly doesn’t tell us who they are or what they are about.

I wouldn’t want to be judged on my numbers alone and I don’t even want to meet anyone who would want to be judged solely on their numbers either.

There is just so much more to us, as people, than a number.

So I’m still going to worry, just for the record.  I’m going to keep worrying about the people who have determined they are either never diabetics or those who have determined they are always diabetics.  I am going to worry for those in denial in either direction, because we each have a lot of living to do and I don’t think anyone can really live when they are busy denying something as big as diabetes. 

I don’t want you to deny your disease, but I don’t want you to be consumed by it either.

We’ve got a whole figurative fruit basket comprising our identities.  Sure, we have apples and oranges, but I’m betting some of us have kumquats and kiwis and dragonfruits and starfruits and pineapples and even a few bananas and peaches, too.

(Or maybe we’re all fruit loops.  I’m not always sure!)

I hold my morning and afternoon bootcamp classes at a high school campus, which means I’m on a high school campus every day.  The energy radiating off even the buildings has changed through the school year as you can I’m sure imagine. 

Which is to say, SUMMER and GRADUATION is on my mind these days.

I remember graduating from high school: it was, in a word, awesome.  Having had diabetes for seven years at the time and living with giving myself shots in front of everyone at school for the past two years I thought I had it all wrapped up. 

Yeah, at the time my A1c was routinely 12.5-13.4.

(I didn’t say I actually had it all wrapped up; I just thought I did.)

I was concerned about my supplies and prescriptions while at school, but I found where my new pharmacy was close to my college campus, and my doctor was in the same state so there wasn’t any problem with getting my insulin.  (I didn’t go on a pump until mid-way through my freshman year at college so I was still taking shots.)

But you know, I could really have used some actual help learning how to be myself and how to be me with diabetes.

Having had the opportunity last week to chat with a group of teens with diabetes, I heard them echo the same things from my memories.

I admit I felt a little sorry for them; I know that life with diabetes while transitioning from parent-care to self-care is incredibly difficult—especially when as a teen you are trying desperately to not need adults for much of anything!

I don’t want them to have to do it alone.  Ever.  It’s just too much, too complex, and too much is at stake in their lives and in their bodies.

Of course I don’t think there is a lot I can do about some of it: teens are sure nothing will happen to them and far be it from me to ever be the one to shatter that illusion.  Time will take care of that.

But what options can I help out with?  And what can we, as people who have gone through the transition from high school to college and beyond while living with diabetes, offer as help for those walking in our footsteps?

I have a list.  It includes discussing plans for every day regimens, medications and supplies, the financial side of things, dealing with insurance hassles, roommates, and actually leaving for college.

It’s one of the reasons I started Diabetes Outside.  I don’t want anyone to feel as scared and alone as I felt, or be in as much denial as I was.  Don’t hesitate to contact me if you want some real help with this transition.

It turns out, it isn’t worth it to try and face life with diabetes on your own.

You’re worth way too much for anyone to let you even attempt it.

We all know that living with diabetes and trying to manage our blood glucose levels as they fluctuate throughout the day with food, stress, sleep, weather, exercise, wow sometimes it feels they change based on how clean our socks are, is simply a struggle.

It’s hard to micromanage our own bodies every moment of every day.

And because I like to keep things in perspective when I begin feeling overwhelmed with what daily life with diabetes really takes, I thought it would be good to see things in a slightly different light.

That little drop right there you might miss at first glance is a unit of insulin.

If I’m off by a unit every day, it will affect me.  If I have that much more than I need, I’m in need of urgent food intervention and if I don’t get it I’ll need an EMT.

If I’m missing that one unit every day, I will suffer the more traditional long-term complications in the future we’ve all heard about because the glucose in my bloodstream will damage my micro- and macro- vascular systems.

And I take the units through my pump in increments of 0.05 units.  (I didn’t even try to take a picture of that!)

It isn’t very much, is it?

The bigger drop here is 40 units, the average amount of insulin I take every day.

It’s amazing how much thought we each put into our lives with diabetes, isn’t it?  Sometimes getting a little perspective and seeing what a massive task we have on our shoulders can help us see that it makes perfect sense we don’t “get it right” all the time.

We’re doing a pretty complex thing here on a fairly minute level.  Most people don’t even realize how much work we are doing in our brains all day every day just to balance our blood sugars with this infinitesimally small tool that is keeping us alive.

I think we’re each kind of amazing just for that—not to even mention our regular lives!!

Yup, we rock.