Happy National Donut Day!

June 3rd, 2011 by Amy Gonsalves Leave a reply »

I found out this morning when I checked facebook that today is National Donut Day

Not only is it National Donut Day, but Krispy Kreme is giving away a free donut to every customer.

Yes!  Free.  Donut.  Every.  Person.

Well, that news changed my day quite a bit.  In a good way.

Happy Friday!!

Every time I see a donut I’m about to eat I think about the donuts our Sunday School teacher brought us when I was in confirmation in junior high.  As it was common knowledge I have diabetes, and since everyone knows DIABETICS CAN’T EAT SUGAR, he brought me a muffin each week.

Really quite kind of him if you think about it.

Now, this was back before I had a sliding scale or counted carbs or anything like we do now.  But let me tell you: this muffin was HUGE and it had nothing but pure sugar.  I probably would have been better off just eating a donut!

And then I started thinking (I was well into my third donut by this point- the second paid one) about how many people have commented on what I can and cannot eat in my 23 years of living with type one diabetes.

Add to that the fact I’m a fitness professional and used to weigh about 50 pounds more than I weigh now, and a marathoner, and someone who is just trying to do her best—but  it so often feels like any and every person who knows me has said something about something they’ve seen me put in my mouth.  I’ve stopped eating meals with others sometimes simply because I didn’t want them to evaluate my lunch.

But THEN you have to add in the fact that I don’t want to just tell everyone to leave me alone and scram—I want them to not keep asking or keep wondering.  I want to tell them the truth about eating with type one diabetes.

The truth is, it’s a lot of calculations.  It is a lot of trial and error.  It’s probably more “error” than “trial” really.  And the consequences range from uncomfortable to dire crisis to not being able to feel my legs as I stand 60 years from now.  It’s a lot of guessing and measuring and reading and thinking and trying and feeling like a failure.

It’s a lot of doing my best every day and feeling frustrated that perhaps my best isn’t going to be good enough.

And yet, if someone asks something about what “can” and “should” I eat, or makes a comment about me eating candy… I rarely get to tell them all of that.

I usually settle for saying something like “I can eat anything I want; I just need to count how much sugar is in the food.  It used to be that you had to eat your food to match your insulin, but now I match my insulin to the food I want to eat.”

Still, on a perfect day I wouldn’t need to explain anything—I could just eat—but for now, I guess I’ll stick with my standard response.

And enjoy my donuts.

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