Our diabetic path full of black ice

I like to joke around that Emma seems to do her best thinking while in the bath. She comes up with some crazy ideas, hilarious stories, and actually really profound things while sitting there playing around with her toys. I've started to realize that I seem to do my best thinking on my walks to and from Emma's school. Take today for example...I was walking along...ok more like inching (wait...I am in Canada...maybe it should be millimetering along? LOL) because we got tons of rain all day long yesterday and it all turned to ice overnight. The sun is shining and I knew that a lot of it had melted off already, but there were those evil little black ice patches lurking all around me...waiting for me to place my Airwalks on ever so precariously and just send me flying...ass over tea kettle (or whatever that saying is?!) My child is not a big fan of walking to school at all. She will complain about it at least twice everytime, she will ask me to carry her backpack for her because "it's TOO HEAVY" (she's in grade 2...I mean really, the child has no idea what a heavy backpack feels like), and add into the mix a couple of containers that I had to carry that were full of Italian Anise cookies I made for her class Christmas party, oh yes...and don't forget the ever present froggie face blood sugar meter bag and juice box. So, there I was loaded down with all of this stuff...trying to hold onto Emma's hand in case she slipped on the ice...and somehow managing to navigate the safest path possible for us up the hill to school. I started to think about how I could actually relate this particular walk to our life with diabetes. I know...I know...what can't you seem to find to relate to diabetes, Amy? I'm sure there are tons of things...but I only choose to share the diabetes related ones on here!
Anyhoo, I realized that while we live this diabetic life...we are constantly trying to navigate our way through unknown situations...circumstances that are beyond our control...just like trying to walk along a black ice riddled pathway. As the years go by, we tend to become very familiar with the path...we learn about the ins and outs of managing it, how our kiddos bodies react to certain things, and it seems to turn into a routine....just like walking along this familiar path to school...we know every crack in the sidewalk, every bump in the road, every house that we pass by. It's familiar and safe. It's comforting and normal for us. However, just like that black ice on the path...diabetes holds many uncertain and scary things. We are never fully in control of what is going on. We find out pretty quickly that there is no possible way to be 100% confident that we are doing the right thing and making the right decision when making insulin dose changes, guessing at carb counts, or even attempting to figure out how some every day occurance will affect blood sugars. I don't know about any of you reading this, but I resisted that in the beginning...I resisted having to accept the fact that no matter how hard I try...no matter how badly I want it...I can never have things be for certain in this life...I can never be fully confident in the decisions I make everyday. I resisted that and it ate away at me for a long time. We as people living with diabetes in our lives are forced to accept a life of unknown. It is thrust upon us...unwanted and unfairly...but we all must find a way to accept it and grab ahold of that unknown. We must grab it and find a way to live our lives in spite of it. We have become masters of living on the edge, going with the flow, taking each moment and each blood sugar as it comes. We have learned to live with the chaos and make it our own.
So, just as that pathway to school that is covered in black ice...our pathway of life with diabetes is now our own...familiar and normal...scary and uncertain...and it's simply ours.