Wednesday, July 25, 2007

My Life (Without Diabetes)

I was thinking today about what life would be like without diabetes. It is hard to imagine. For the past 22 years of my life I have lived with watching what I eat, checking my blood sugar, and going to the doctor. Shots went from 2 a day, to 4, and finally to the pump. Each time I hear about new developments in diabetes research, they always say "a cure is just around the corner." But they've been saying that for years.

I know a woman who told me that her friend's daughter is in medical school currently. She was going to go into endocrinology and decided to "double major" (I'm not sure what they call it in med school) because she thinks that by the time she gets out of med school and sets up a practice there will be a cure and she wants to have a specialty that will be around for a while.

That made my heart smile. If a future doctor thinks that a cure is that close, maybe it really is.

I have lived my life eating on schedule. What would it be like to not live like that? Is my body so used to eating 3 meals a day that I wouldn't be able to skip a meal if there was no diabetes? Would I over eat, just because I could? Would I continue to count carbs out of habit? Would I quit going to the doctor on a regular basis and let my overall health slide?

I don't remember life before diabetes. I don't remember drinking Mountain Dew (which my mother says I loved) or eating Captain Crunch (without counting carbs).

I wonder if I would continue to live life like I had diabetes (minus the insulin & testing), just because I always have?

I know this is a weird topic for a blog, but I just had that thought today. Does anyone else have thoughts like this?

2 comments:

Donna said...

I've wondered about this, too. Sometimes I think I would probably eat myself to death! But then - I hardly remember anything before diabetes so I hope I would stick to my somewhat healthy habits. A cure - hmmm - that would be weird for us, wouldn't it? But I could live with weird.

Bernard said...

Cara

I think about this all the time. It's one of the reasons why I'm riding to fund research towards a Type 1 cure.

I'm truly hoping to see some BIG progress by say 2012, around the time of my 40th anniversary with diabetes. I'm planning to be around to enjoy the change.