I was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes at age 4. I had the usual symptoms, drinking, peeing, and weight loss. The one clear memory (much of those memories are long gone) was listening to my mother talking to the pediatrician on the phone, while in the bathroom, as she was being told to bring me to the hospital. It was just after Thanksgiving and we were going to have turkey soup with alphabet noodles for dinner that night, I can still see the pot on the stove and smell that liquid gold. I think that if I had eaten the soup maybe the D wouldn’t have come – isn’t chicken soup the “Jewish penicillin?” Maybe turkey soup could have been the “Jewish insulin.” I remain slightly bitter that I missed out on the meal, but I do have a long love affair with soup that has defined my life, at certain points. 
Bizarre what sticks in your head.
The hospitalization was a blur, but I do remember the first shot. I was held down by 2 nurses while a 3rd injected me with mixed beef/pork regular. I’m not sure what gauge needles they used then, but I’m going to guess it was about a 26! Once I was discharged from the hospital, my parents were desperate to find options other than just insulin. As a 5 year old, I wasn’t too excited about being told that I would eat a macrobiotic diet for the foreseeable future to “prolong the time that my islets would make insulin.” Needless to say, I still needed insulin and I had a real aversion to Japanese food for many years to come. I’m sure it was a very healthy diet, but bringing tofu in your lunch box at 5 is no fun. After about 2 years we gave that up and I learned about exchanges – oh what fun - “you can have 1 starch, 1 fruit, 1 milk, and 2 proteins for your dinner, now what’s a slice of pizza again?” I had the usual disinterest in managing my diabetes as a kid and teen. The testing was really rudimentary, so often I felt like “what’s the point?” Who out there remembers clinitest? I was fortunate to have intelligent, demanding, nurturing, inquisitive parents to push me in the direction of good control and not punish too hard when I pushed back. I also meet a wonderful pediatric endocrinologist, named Joan MacCracken. She was as big an inspiration for life as I have encountered. I got to attend the first year of a week long diabetes camp she started, that included the whole family. It was a really wonderful experience and the first time I met other kids who knew what it was like. She wrote a beautiful book about the camp called The Sun, the Rain, and the Insulin.
I ended up going to college and majoring in biology. I knew that I wanted be an endocrinologist, but wasn’t sure if I could get there. I had grown up in a small central Maine college town and then went to college in a smaller Connecticut college town, so I thought it’s time for a city. I also wanted to try to contribute to society a little bit before jumping back into the classroom again. I ended up in a lab for 2 years at the Joslin Center in Boston working on the genetics of nephropathy. While in Boston 2 important things happened, both in the same week! The first was when I went out for beers with my co-workers after work, without brining my vials of pork N and R – yes I was still on a twice daily regimen of pork NPH and Regular after 19 years of diabetes. Of note, while my HbA1c was great, but I was walking around in the 30’s most of the day and 300’s other times. On that particular night, I didn’t bother to test until my 20 oz oatmeal stout arrived, wait for it, wait for it…350 mg/dL!!! Arrrggggh. I had an hour T ride home in misery before I could even give my shot. The next day I walked downstairs from the lab to my endo’s office (convenient) and said I was finally ready for a pump. My rational was to never again pay for a beer that I didn’t get to enjoy. The fact that my lows were dramatically reduced was beside the point. 
The second major event happened while I was still on my saline pump start. I went to a party with one of my co-workers and met a friend of his from college. I was smitten and we spent the evening just hanging out, getting to know one another. At one point, Peter said “HEY MICK, HOW’S YOUR PUMP?” Kind of an awkward moment after you’ve just met a new girl but the D cat was out of the bag early and I didn’t have to think about “how will I tell her?” I just didn’t want her to think it was some other type of pump….About 3 months later we had the “meet my mom” evening out. Meridith, as she had become accustomed to, was carrying a juice box in her purse. My mom saw this and pulled me aside to say “she’s the one.” And she was.
I enjoyed Joslin, but I was definitely ready to actually learn and practice medicine after 2 years as a lab rat. We moved and I started medical school. The transition was tough because everyone who was sick tended to have diabetes. I also had very little experience with type 2 but soon realized that the struggles with diabetes are the same, no matter the “type.” I needed to find a way to incorporate my experience into helping patients without projecting my own situation on to them. I think that it’s still a work in progress that improves everyday. I definitely don’t walk into the room and say “Hi I’m Dr. Davidson and I have diabetes” but in the right setting, it carries a lot of weight to be able to say “I realize what you are struggling with.” I find that it is very meaningful for people with diabetes to have a doctor who has been there. I’ve now finished my training and am practicing in the “real world.” It’s been a wonderful experience to finally get to the place that had always been a distant destination. I have no complications, after 30 years, and that is a big something to be happy about. I think my control is as good now as it has ever been, thanks to the Dexcom and pump (and continued diligence). It’s amazing how the treatment of diabetes has evolved in 30 years and I’m excited to for what the future holds.
I feel fortunate to have stumbled across Tudiabetes and the other blogs that I now read on a daily basis. I am constantly learning new things about my diabetes through the experiences and writings of this community. It is an amazing thing for someone who is newly diagnosed to be able to find a community of 6000 people with the same situation. We are all blessed to have each other. So, in the end I guess I’ll celebrate by continuing to live my life, as uninterrupted as possible. I went to work today and will go home at the end to see my wife, daughter, and dog. No different than the previous day, but still a milestone that should be marked. Maybe I’ll have some cake for dinner… Thank you for sharing this day with me, let’s hope that by the next big anniversary we’ve all been liberated from the constant companion, our friend and enemy, diabetes.