This evening the light at this entrance captivated me. It’s the only photo I took, again.
Last night I had a horrendous low – 30. My husband was awake when it happened, and saved me because I literally was too weak to move. I was close to losing consciousness, and worse, I could have lost my life.
It is so difficult to deal with this disease. For months I had to take higher and higher doses of insulin, basal and meal. Now all of a sudden, even if my reading is what would have required more in the recent past, apparently it’s yet a whole other story. You cannot rest with this disease. You are always monitoring it. It’s a never-ending science experiment. It is EXHAUSTING.
People who don’t struggle with Type 1 diabetes really don’t know all the near misses that happen. It gets to be depressing to communicate how much you are trying to lead a normal life, but in privacy really are not. When other people are worried about what they look like, I worry about managing to stay healthy, whether I gain a few pounds or grey hairs or wrinkles is another layer of not fitting in, on top of what and when I eat, how much stress I can handle, how much rest I need, physical and mental. I’m the person with half a leg trying to keep up with the normal legs, except my injury is invisible. Which means some people think I’m pretending. So add trying to explain, to defending yourself – and all of that is detrimental to your spirit as it’s repeated over time.
When I was diagnosed with this disease 10 years ago, a few years after the birth of my second and last child, it opened my eyes. A lot. It was another layer, on top of being a mother, of being unseen.
The only silver lining of invisible suffering that I can perceive, is that you see others in the same situation. Others who aren’t being heard. Others who have lies made up about them, and a reality that isn’t theirs plastered to their public face. Others whose lives are taken for granted. And you know to touch them, and tell them they’re not alone. They’re not worthless. They belong. They’re supposed to be here. Their lives are this way, like the shadows around an object, to give it volume, depth, and reality. And true beauty.
