Living A Dangerous Life

June 16th, 2011 by Amy Gonsalves Leave a reply »

Ah, Life.

Life is so dangerous when you live with diabetes. 

It’s so dangerous it’s amazing we make it out of bed.  It’s so dangerous every time we take a shot or prick our fingers we might get an infection.  If we don’t we live in fear of long term complications.  If we need sugar we need it immediately or we could die. 

It’s dangerous.  It’s immediate need just on the other side of our consciousness at all times.

It’s scary.  It’s serious.  It’s a full time job without any breaks.  We count everything.  We don’t eat without thought.  If we do, we are living on the edge.

We need to have emergency supplies of quick sugars, emergency supplies of medication, extra medication in case the original supply gets too hot or too cold or randomly goes bad.  We need to carry emergency syringes in case our pump konks out.  We need to be within an hour of insulin at every moment of every day.

It’s dangerous.

It’s complicated, and it’s quiet. 

Living with danger.

 _______

I tell you; just writing the above few sentences exhausted me. 

I don’t deal well with articles or mentions or people who feel a need to highlight the dangers of hypoglycemia or the dangers of hyperglycemia or the dangers of whatever or the struggles we face every day.

I really don’t deal well with it at all.

I’m not saying I ignore any of the above dangers.  Yes, I know what could happen.  I also know what could happen when I cross the street or get on a plane. 

I just don’t agree with highlighting it all the time—we’ve all sat in a medical office and heard the lectures; we’ve read the articles; we’ve answered the questions. Heck; we all get into our cars multiple times every day despite the dangers involved.

When it comes to life with diabetes, we’ve felt most of those dangers, too.

And, amazingly enough, we’ve kept on keeping on

It isn’t the people living with diabetes who highlight those dangers, I don’t think.  It isn’t those of us who have felt what a blood glucose of 27 or 538 feels like.

We don’t need to mention it—we’ve felt it.

And I, for one, continue to keep on keeping on; doing my best every day to live my life.  With and without the danger attached to living with diabetes.  I can’t see it as “dangerous” when it’s my daily reality.

Maybe I should get myself a leather jacket and a Harley—I’m such a thrill seeker. What do you think?

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1 comment

  1. Adam says:

    I try and do the same thing, just keep at it day by day, and I try not to worry about the future too much, I’m starting to worry about college though. that’s coming up in about a year.

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