Wins and Losses in the Battles of Diabetes
As a diabetic, you take your wins but you also take your losses. And as far as I’m concerned, there’s more losses than there are wins. It’s just not easy, ever. One of the losses I took hit me about four or so months after I was diagnosed with diabetes. Being in the fifth grade we got to go for an hour or so of PE every week. Prior to diabetes, I was a kid that could do the required push ups, sit ups, pull ups and run a mile. I was running eleven minute miles before I got diabetes. Doing the usual PE activities would send my blood sugar spiraling downward and me to the nurses office where I would then spend a couple hours in there trying to nurse that low blood sugar back into a normal range. Those little worthless juices that the school gives to us for lunches or that are stored in the nurses office for the diabetics with low blood sugars. Juice and graham crackers. It started to be an inconvenience, my low blood sugars, I was missing class, I couldn’t think straight when I was having them, it just wasn’t a good thing. And thus, I got told that I couldn’t participate in PE, not in the running activities, not anything that was considered good cardio activity. No, I could only participate in the semi-annual, we’re going to give you a test and you can sit there and do your sit-ups, you could go do your pull ups, and you could do your push-ups, but you can’t run. It was so sad. Since I couldn’t do my 4 laps around the grass field, I couldn’t get my certificate saying that I had passed the test. I was sad. It was detrimental to a kid who had always loved PE, who had always loved being active, who was always outside on her bike, rollerblading, swimming, and running around.
I was all of the sudden limited in the activities that I could participate in. I hated it. This would cause fights for many years to come. When I got diabetes I was only checking my blood four times a day, breakfast, lunch, dinner, and bedtime. There was no, you can go participate in sports if you check your blood before doing so, there was no mention of snacks before participating in said activities. I don’t remember what was going on. I do remember that while every other student was whining because they had to take PE and they didn’t want to, I was crying because I couldn’t take PE and I did want to.
During the years I spent in middle school and high school i escaped the dreaded by all others PE classes and to my dismay I didn’t get the opportunity to participate in sports. I was a fish that would’ve loved to have been on the swim team. I had begged over and over and over again to be able to play baseball. It just never happened, none of it…
I had to wait until I was 21 when I got an insulin pump before I could start participating in those activities that “normal” kids participated in. I was ecstatic when I got my pump, but among the usual reasons (read: no more shots) I was most excited because I would finally get to participate in “sports” because I had a plastic pancreas. That plastic pancreas was going to help me out because I wasn’t taking huge amounts of insulin all at one time, I’d be getting little bits every hour and since I had to check my blood more often to be on the pump I knew what my blood sugars were going to be going into whatever athletic class I chose. I could disconnect the pump while participating in said sports. It was gonna be great, it was great. I got to take a running class, which I sucked in because I couldn’t remember how to breathe while running and I had to relearn and haven’t really been any good at running ever since. It’s rough. But I also go to take a racquet ball class which I absolutely loved and we actually spent more time putting welts on each other than actually playing racquet ball properly. I even got to participate in a couple semesters of weight lifting class, and I had more fun doing cardio activities than I did lifting weights. But in all these classes, I rarely had a low blood sugar and it was a cool feeling. I was almost a normal kid, I mean, if you ignore the fact that before class I was checking my blood, drinking juice if I needed to, disconnecting my pump. I was doing the things I didn’t get to do and was told I couldn’t do when I was in middle school and high school. It was cool.
Now we fast forward to present day (because a whole lot of stuff happened between ages 21 and 26 and not much of it was healthy) where I’m learning how to adjust to my new insulin pump and handling my diabetes while working out and cycling. With the recent care of my diabetes (recent being the last year and a half), I’ve encountered several wins and several losses. A win was me being able to skydive. Something I had always wanted to do but also something I was always told that diabetics couldn’t do. A loss was on my 4th jump (a made a total of 5) my blood sugar going low while I was 10,000 feet in the air and having my instructors telling me that on the way down I was mildly unresponsive to their hand signals. It scared the living daylights out of me. If I were to go low and pass out while in the air, I’d be as good as dead. I made one more jump that day and have been unable to make another jump. On the various levels of stupidity, skydiving is stupid, sky diving with the possibility of going low midair is just beyond stupidity, skydiving with the possibility of going low midair after taking care on the ground to make sure that you weren’t going to go low is a death wish. My skydiving dream has been retired. But even though I had to put another tick on the board for a loss in the end, I got a win, 5 jumps were far better than no jumps. Skydiving was going to be my sport, but realizing my fear of what would happen if I jumped again, I retired and picked up another sport. One that wasn’t exactly available in middle school or high school.
My biggest win in my 15 years of having diabetes was me in March of this year, deciding that I was going to start riding in Tour de Cure’s across the US. It served a dual purpose, 1) I got to participate in a sport, and 2) it’s going to help find me a cure. I may not have ever been able to play baseball or go running in PE, but I can cycle, and I enjoy it. Cycling has become my sport. It took far more work in the beginning of me deciding to cycle to control my diabetes because I was still on shots, but once I got on the plastic pancreas again, things started to take shape for the good. I figured out how to ride while wearing the pump, I figured out what I had to eat in order to keep my numbers under control while riding, I figured out how often I had to stop and how far and how hard I could ride and yet still keep myself in good working order.
After so many losses, I’ve encountered a win that I can keep, nothing but my stupidity could turn it around into a loss. I have finally found something that if I actually take the time to take care of my diabetes, I can go and enjoy it. I have finally found a sport that I can “compete” in and that actually has some stability so that I can predict what will happen while I’m participating.
Things have changed in the last 15 years. 15 years ago, it was harder to manage diabetes and participate in various activities. But a lot has changed. And while we are winning more battles, we still have yet to win the war that the lack of a working pancreas is waging within us. But now, I can help win the war. I can use my newly found ability and my current win in diabetes to help find a cure. I’m refusing to be limited any longer, anything else that occurs in my life where diabetes is concerned, I want it to be a won battle. And actually, in reality, a won war would be far better. Kids like me shouldn’t have to wage the battles that we do day in and day out with this disease. We shouldn’t have to pray for a win where the things we want to do are concerned and worse yet we shouldn’t have to be devastated by a loss when we find out that we can’t do the things that we wanted to do.
I’ve had some wins, and I’ve had many losses. And while the wins are exciting, the losses are far beyond devastating sometimes, especially, when I remember the parts of my life that I can remember before I had diabetes. If I hadn’t gotten diabetes, I would’ve been able to play baseball, I would’ve been able to gladly participate in PE, I’d probably still be skydiving. And I know I can’t dwell on the past and that I should only focus on the present, but my present could’ve been different, drastically different, if the war in my body hadn’t been lost. I want to win the current war. I want my diabetes to be gone. And it will be gone, one day, I have to believe in that and thus, I’m taking my most recently won battle, my battle to be athletic, and I’m riding to win the battle against diabetes. I will win.
This is excerpt from my NaNoWriMo project: Confessions of a Type 1 Diabetic. For the curious, it’s 1777 words bringing my NaNoWriMo total to 5515 words.
3 Responses to “Wins and Losses in the Battles of Diabetes”
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November 4th, 2007 at 8:56 am
[...] was 10,000 feet in the air and having my instructors telling me that on the way d… source: Wins and Losses in the Battles of Diabetes, RideToRemedy.com - Riding To Cure [...]
November 4th, 2007 at 8:25 pm
[...] the Air Force. In middle school, JROTC wasn’t an option just like PE wasn’t an option (Wins and Losses in the Battles of Diabetes). ROTC wasn’t an option in College because you’re considered a Cadet and it’s an [...]
November 12th, 2007 at 11:36 pm
[...] I started bike riding back in March because I so badly wanted to ride in the SoCal Tour de Cure and I discovered that if [...]