Tales from beneath the headlamp

It was 2:00am this morning and I was sitting in the couch. The only sounds were my tv playing a continuous loop of the theme song on the main menu of my season 4 DVD of "Sons of Anarchy" and the cat running around the living room pouncing on her mouse toy like it was high noon and time to party.
I sat there forcing my eyes to stay open...feeling the frustration and anger at diabetes taking over my body. I would have given my left arm in that moment to just be able to lay down on the couch and pull my purple Snuggie up over my head and just go to sleep. But I couldn't. I had to stay awake. Emma's blood sugar was higher than I was comfortable with and I knew that if I set an alarm and went to sleep, that I would have just turned to alarm off in my sleep and never gotten up to check her. So, I stayed awake. I sat there...angry...tired. The irony of my realization of the never-endingness of it all while sitting there listening to the never-endingness of the "Sons of Anarchy" theme song made me giggle in spite of it all.
I sat there giggling and thinking about how I was most definitely not the only person in the world in that moment of time playing the waiting game. In fact, there were probably thousands of other Moms and Dads and people living with diabetes in their house doing it too. It was like sinking my teeth into a perfect combination of a comforting depressing sandwich with a side of determination fries.
This is what we do. We defy all the odds. We walk through life with this unimaginable weight of worry and stress upon our exhausted shoulders. I can't tell you how many times in the last almost 5 years I have been told, "I don't know how you do it. I could never do it. I could never give my child needles or figure out their insulin needs or stay up all night. I need my sleep...I just couldn't do it!" More often than not I usually respond to those statements with a polite attitude and just smile and nod and pull out one of the standard replies of, "Sure you could!"
We weren't given a choice. The fates laid this life at our feet and we were never given the option to turn the other cheek and just ignore it. There is no ignoring diabetes if you want to continue living. This is our life. This is what we do. It is what it is.
So, there I sat at 2am beneath my trusty headlamp...waiting out the clock...and drawing on my reserves of energy to make it through the last 1/4 mile of the day. I made it. She was fine.
This post is dedicated to all of you who sat there on your own couches in the wee hours of this morning. You weren't alone. I was sitting there right beside you. Holding your hand and counting down the minutes together. We did it. We made it. We will continue to make it because we have that little something special that lies within our spirits....perseverance. I tip my headlamp to you and hope that we don't have to meet again at 2am on the couch.....but if we do, I promise to save you a spot.