My Facebook D-Day

In honour of November being Diabetes Awareness Month, yesterday I decided to update my Facebook status every time I did something diabetes related. I wanted to share a little bit about our day....not just the usual statistics and the shocking moments that will inevitably come with managing this disease.......but more so the day to day stuff...the meat of the proverbial diabetes sandwich. I wanted to share with those that do not live this life every day. I wanted to show them that even though I have gotten quite good at pretending that I am not worried and that all is ok ALL of the time.....that in reality, I do worry...I am scared when I drop my kid off at school....I am terrified to go to sleep at night for fear of what will happen inside my daughter's body while I am unconscious. There really isn't a perfect way to explain to someone how it is...how it feels.....the only way I could come up with to get my point across was to share our experiences. It was just one day in our life. One day amongst hundreds now that we have lived with this disease in our house. Just a tiny little snippet of an average day in the life of parenting a child with diabetes.
My best hope for doing this was that people would read it. I felt that as long as they read it, they would gain a little education and a little insight. I felt like maybe...just maybe....they would gain a bit of understanding....true understanding. I wanted them to see that we don't want pity. We don't want the sad faces and sad eyes. We just want understanding.
It just so happened that diabetes threw me a curveball in the morning and caused Emma to be low a couple of times. We dealt with it and moved on. It was pizza day at school. She had a playdate after school, it was cold out, she was tired from the night before from trick or treating. I shared all of the potential factors in things that affect blood sugars. I shared it all. I opened the door to my honest life....and shut off the switch on pretending...for just one day.
The response I got was overwhelming. There were many I have known since I was young who commented and thanked me for sharing and giving them a glimpse into our D-life. There were some that I see every single day that said the same. It made me feel good. It made me feel like I had accomplished something...gotten my point across.
I admit that I was a little worried that most people would just ignore my posts or even block them so they didn't have to read my continuous updates because they were annoying. I admit that after a while, they were even starting to annoy me. I was a little surprised to find myself being annoyed with them because I was the one who was writing them and sharing them! I think that it turned out to sort of be a slap in the face of d-reality for me honestly. I mean I KNOW what we do everyday. I KNOW the stress, the worry, the constant necessity of "being on". I live this life and I know what it entails....however when I wrote it all out like that....status update by status update...moment by moment...as we leaped over each hurdle diabetes put in front of is....it sort of
just....hit....me.....
THIS is what we do
THIS is how we live
THIS is a normal average day for us
The highs, the lows, and everything in between.
It's just how it is. Seeing the words written out like that.........*sigh*...........it hurt my heart.
I was saddened at how quickly we were able to accept this life as normal. I was saddened at how much we have changed in 4+ years and how what once would have been bizarre and scary.........is now our everyday lives.
It also made my heart ache....in a good way. I was amazed at how far we have come...how much more educated we are...how much more comfortable we are...how much determination we have...how nothing will stop us....not even a disease that currently has no cure.
I read my updates and was proud. Proud of myself.....but mostly proud of Emma for she is the one that is truly living it every day in this house.