Everyone’s got their Dragon to fight in Life
Diabetes is mine.
I don’t like feeling limited. ( i promise this get’s better keep reading)
I don’t like feeling weak.
I don’t like the hassle
I don’t like people’s ignorant comments and opinions about my disease.
I feel embarrassed when my BG is low and I can’t function.
I don’t like missing work even if my coworkers understand.
I don’t like it when people’s first question is “how is your health”… like I’m the sickly friend.
I don’t like fighting with Doctors and nurses to get help when my body takes a dive bomb and I can barely think straight much less communicate to them what I need.
I don’t like forking out a couple hundred $$ every time I go to the pharmacy.
I don’t like working my butt off to feel better when other people abuse their bodies and feel great.
It has taught me that even though I’m the ONLY one who feels the diabetes is a weakness. Everyone else thinks I’m really strong. It has taught me to be grateful for all the other parts of my body that work. I am more aware of those who have health problems. And really, it’s not like it’s a visual problem - people see me on the street and can’t tell I have diabetes. It could be much worse.
It has softened me up a bit.
It has taught me to accept help from my friends.
It has taught me not to be proud.
It has taught me not to whine
I have learned how to function when I don’t feel good. I am now more efficient and a better planner.
It has taught me to be patient when other people are slow or are rude. Maybe they are dealing with their own health issues.
It has taught me to be disciplined
It has opened up so many worlds in the area of health, nutrition, and exercise.
It has taught me to rely on God- he’s my stability
I’ll be completely honest. I haven’t fully accepted that fact that I have Diabetes but I’m headed the right direction.
One big milestone of accepting Diabetes was to get the medic alert tattoo on my wrist. I was hesitant to get it for a couple reasons. It would feel like i was stamping myself with the disease… felt too final… I didn’t want to feel like there was something wrong with me. I didn’t want to explain it to people when they asked about it. I figured it would invite those ignorant comments people always make about Diabetes.
Turns out everyone thinks it’s really cool and now I get to tell them why I designed it to be a dragon on a sword instead of the typical snake on a staff.
We don’t realize how many people we affect and when they see us working hard to take care of ourselves- not just surviving Diabetes but Thriving- it speaks volumes to them.They don’t see D as a weakness so why should we?
Everyone’s got a dragon to fight in life and ours happens to be Diabetes.
Don’t ever give up.
