It's been two years since Type 1 Diabetes came into our lives. How do I feel?
I feel thankful.
I feel tired.
And I feel...normal. Yeah, normal. Huh. Who would have thought? I feel normal.
I guess that's good. My brain has reconfigured. Reconciled. It now has a dedicated diabetes thought process that runs continuously. My stress cup has a reserved volume dedicated to diabetes so there is less room than before for other stresses. But basically this is just what we do now. I don't have to like that this is what we do now, and I don't, but for the better part of each day we just live our lives. The good, old fashion, comfortable routine of life.
Two years ago I could not imagine that constant, unrelenting panicky feeling ever subsiding. The exhaustion. The ever present certainty that I didn't have a freakin' clue what I was doing. Really knowing what it meant to live day by day. The fatigue. So much fatigue I worried I would do something wrong and harm the girls. The overwhelming urge to wrap my babies protectively in my arms and never let them out of my site*. The worry. The crushing, paralyzing heartbreak.
Of course these things are still around. Some seem to spend most of their time hibernating and others just take naps. Except the heartbreak. I can't get the heartbreak to sleep but at least it mostly sits quietly in the corner. It feels a lot longer than two years but here we are. Our normal.
My girls are here with me. Beautiful. Healthy. Thriving. Laughing. Living.
I'm thankful.
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| Roo and Pink |
*sometimes used in place of "sight" when a d-mama's brain is not fully reconciled.
"a dedicated diabetes thought process that runs continuously" <---i am hoping for my year two, i get one of these that doesn't require waking up fully. a dedicated diabetes thought process that runs continuously in the lizard part of my brain, while the human part keeps sleeping. know what i mean? i'm hopeful. congratulations on two years!
ReplyDeleteThat would be awesome! Mine just takes up brain function so far and prevents me from matching socks. But I've worked around that by just throwing them loose in the sock drawer. Thanks!
DeleteI love that description - a dedicated diabetes thought process that runs continuously. It's like that for us that live with it too.
ReplyDeleteI admire all you PWDs so much!! I hope my daughters become focused and continue to be educated about their health as adults.
Deletea friend of mine is nearing her daughter's one year d-versary and i am sending this to her so she can read it and know there will come a time where she can breathe a bit deeper. thank you. :)
ReplyDeleteI hope it helps!! I still get all weird thinking about that first year. There were times I didn't even realized I hadn't breathed.
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