15 Minutes

15 minutes

15 minutes can mean a lot of things to a lot of different people. For example, I could tell my 9 yr old daughter that in 15 minutes she needs to go take a shower and put her pajamas on.....and she interprets that 15 minutes as being an hour and a half.

When I am on hold with the phone company trying to get some answers as to why our phone is out while my kid is at school and undoubtedly about to be checking her blood sugar before snack time, and the recorded message tells me they are experiencing a high volume of calls at the moment and my expected wait time is 15 minutes.....I interpret that as I might as well grab a pillow and a blanket because I'm going to be waiting quite a while forced to listen to a Muzak version of "Mandy" by Barry Manilow.

When my Mom used to tell me that we were leaving our cousins house in 15 minutes to head home after playing there for the afternoon, I always knew it really meant we wouldn't be actually leaving for about another hour....because our Moms would talk....say goodbye....talk some more....grab the coats....talk more....walk to the door...talk more........aaaaannnd then yell to my brother and I asking where we were and why we weren't ready to go yet when she told us it was time to go an hour ago.

To me....as an adult....a D-Mom to be exact, 15 minutes seems like an eternity. When my kids blood sugar is low, and I have to sit there waiting to retest her to make sure it's coming back up after the snack or juice I've given her.....well, each individual second that ticks by is actually painful for me sometimes. I try to distract myself...make a tea, watch TV, go on Facebook, but it doesn't work. I sit there with this awful feeling in my stomach...just panic...will it come up? Will it work this time? How many minutes are left to wait? 13? You've got to be kidding me...that was totally longer than 2 minutes! Is she ok? She looks pale....but she's asleep...and it's dark in here, aside from the headlamp I'm wearing and shining on her sleeping face. She's breathing weird. Is she ok? Should I wake her up? How many minutes are left? 10?!!! This is insanity...I still have 10 more minutes to wait?! 10 more to agonize...staring at her...waiting...hoping the juice worked this time....insanity...this is total insanity....if people only knew what this feels like right now, they would understand...they would donate to research for a cure...they would understand....if only they could feel the heavy...intense...electric panic that shoots through your body with every tick of the clock. It feels like you're drowning in the dark...alone...helpless....no hope. If they only knew....they wouldn't brush off diabetes...or treat it like it's no big deal...they would understand.

15 minutes....it means something totally different to me than it used to.