I don't know if this has every happened to you, but if it or something like it has, I'd like to hear about it.
I was hanging out with my sister at her home last week while on vacation. We are a large family, spread out across the U.S. and I haven't seen her for a few years. Of course I had all my stuff with me and took up some room in her refrigerator to keep my insulin. I was diagnosed as an adult, and none of my eight siblings or I knew anything about diabetes while we were growing up and dispersing around the country. I'm the only one in the family who's been diagnosed, past or present.
I don't remember the precise circumstances except that we were having lunch at a deli and my wife and I were going over the menu items when my sister turned to me and said matter of factly, but with some sympathy,
"You have to pay attention every minute, don't you?"
Bingo! The light went on. The penny dropped. She got it.
I didn't have to explain myself again the rest of the trip and I will never have to explain myself to my sister ever again. That's a relief.
Wow, Terry, that is great! Your sister is a special person. I think it is the rare outsider (maybe with the exception of spouses who see the 24/7 we do) who really gets what it is all about for us. Most of my family and friends think I’m obsessive. I’ve resigned myself to this area of my life being one they just don’t “get”. But you are very lucky!
I think I would have cried too. I had a similar moment when I was trying to explain things to my stepmother and I just wasn’t getting through. So, I very quickly showed ther the beauty shop scene from ‘Steel Magnolias’ - because its errie similar to me - and I saw the realization hit her like a truck, and then she started crying. That was a very similar moment and I wish it was so easy with others
Wild. My brother doesn’t get it. At all. He can’t figure out why I wouldn’t bring the kids down to my mom’s winter place in FL while he and his kids are there so the cousins can all enjoy Disney World together – I tried to explain to him that traveling with a 3 1/2 year old on an insulin pump was just more stress than I could deal with after two years with no sleep, and he thought I was making some sort of arcane joke. Fact is, I have NO interest in trying air travel with Eric until he’s at least old enough to tell me that he’s having BG issues. Right now, he “tells” me he’s low by having temper tantrums, and high by going hyperactive – who needs THAT while in line at airport security? Never mind the fact that they’ll undoubtedly think the pump is an explosive device and my child a miniature terrorist!
