My first reaction would be to take the non DM road. I always dream of what else my life could have been if I were not denied such freedoms. Backpacking across Europe, joining the airforce, Living on a commune in Washington…Of course, in the spirit of Friedrich Nietzsche, what doesn’t kill you makes you stonger right? I would not be the person I am today. I have always had an interest in medicine and science, and understanding all of the complexities related to diabetes has always come pretty easy. And now I am pursuing a degree in nursing, which I might not have desired without the compassion and empathy I received as patient. And in caring for patients, I often am brought to humility in being reminded that it could most definitely always be worse. I see things every day that I cannot imagine having to endure. It was not until I started working in healthcare when I was younger that I began taking my own health seriously. I had always feared as a teenager all of the potential means of my eminant demise. You could say that it was a case of divine tough love. But then again, I could strive to live to 100 with no complications and be hit by a semi tomorrow. I have learned to have a little faith in divine design. As my grandmother always said, everything happens for a reason. Maybe my interest in science and medicine and research will lead me to helping find a cure, or to helping someone else with some far worse ailment. I have all of the things I thought I would never have, a home, career, children, a husband, and I am just getting started. I can’t say thet I enjoy being diabetic, but I hesitate to question God’s plan. So essentially, I guess I would tak ethe same road. (Wow, that was therapeutic!)
If I had been ask that a year ago I think I would have said the life without. Because my 17y/o daughter was diag last July I am glad I had 30 yrs experience to be able to help her. I think that has been one of my toughest challenges yet. It crushed me the day I checked her BGand it wouldn’t read on my meter. I cried in the begining but now we just laugh and compare BG’s and A1C. By the way her last one was 4.9!!!. Go Autumn
Tough call because I know that if i took another road that lead me away from T2 I wouldn’t have met my wife and I wouldn’t my 3 lovely daughters. Those things mean eveything.
How about the flip side to this question: When the cure is here (and it will be someday), will you want the cure?
good question. YES LOL
I also agree with Scott. I would take the road without D, for many reasons. First, I completely agree with Scott re the fear of complications after having T1 for all these years and the hurtful things that ignorant people say about T1. But maybe my biggest reason is because I hate how T1 affected my family when I was little. I have wonderful parents and they always sacrificed for me and made sure I had the best care possible. But I will never forget the look on my mom’s face when we’d go into my endo’s office and he’d blame us for “bad” numbers, or when my mom would come home from work (she’s a nurse) after seeing patients who had suffered terrible complications from D, or when my parents would worry themselves sick when I was at college and they couldn’t get in touch with me because I was sleeping in or at a friend’s house. I hate what D does to parents of children with D, almost more than I hate having it myself!
I cannot complain about my life with T1, though. T1 has given me discipline, diligence, maturity, a healthy perspective, and a big work ethic, and those traits have served me VERY well both in my career and in my personal life. Plus, I am a Christian and I know that God has a plan and a reason for giving me T1, and I’m not about to second-guess Him. But if I somehow had the choice, I would take the non-D road, hands down!!
I have to say I would take the cure any day.
i would probley stay on the road i am right now. I like being different then most poeple but i like how people get into diabetes wondering whats it like. And it doesnt matter who you are, you could get diaetes, take nick jonas as a sample … he is a different person then most famous people. God gaave you diabetes cause he new you could handle it. So i like it the way i am .
I would take the road without diabetes because that would be the road where I asserted myself against boyfriends and husbands who kept bullying me into not eating the way I ate when I was growing up. The one good thing diabetes has given me is the backbone to insist that I have to eat my food and not some crap the guy in my life wants me to eat.
The path to a life without diabetes would also be the path to not letting my life be controlled by a string of petty dictators. Win-win. I regret that it took me until age forty to learn how to take a stand for myself and not buckle to everyone else, trying to please everyone else, stuffing my own life into a rucksack and hiding it away so that there would be no conflict. That’s no way to live! I wasted so much of my life!
And now I’m paying for it with metformin pills that make me too sick to leave the house and do anything. This is my penance for being a dumbass doormat all those years.
No diabetes would mean I learned these lessons years ago and didn’t eat myself into an early grave because someone else would throw a tantrum if I didn’t eat the way they were eating. That was such a braindead way to live. What did it get me?
If I wasn’t diagnosed with diabetes, I might not have chosen the path which lead to the birth of my son. But perhaps I would have.
However, if I didn’t have diabetes my son (who is five) wouldn’t be worried about his mother being ‘sick’ and I wouldn’t be worried about how the future of my health might affect him. I’d take no diabetes in a heartbeat.
in 5 seconds.
Diabetes has shaped who I am. Without it, my life would be unrecognizable, I wouldn’t even recognize myself. I wouldn’t have met the people I’ve known through my life, and I never would have met my husband. I’m grateful for all it’s given me - even the hardships because they’ve shaped me and taught me so much - so I can’t imagine life without it. I can’t say I wouldn’t be curious to meet non-diabetic me, but I like who I am and my life as it is, so I prefer to keep it as I know it.
Let me think about this choice a minute!
I am always looking for a personal cure for T1D,lol
I too have had T1D for the majority of my life and it has made me a stronger person!
I feel very lucky to be alive with ALL I have dealt with throughout the years of my D, complications and allergies! As you know I have survived quite a few obstacles with my D. I hope for the best control in my D. and look forward to better A1C’s! (That’s an original goal,lol)
I can not think of what it would have been like without D? That seems funny to me now!
I just do the best I can with what I was dealt and it is ok with me! (Ask me tomorrow I may change my mind!) lol
I would like the link to your friends posting!
This would indeed be interesting to read in full!
Linda
I agree with Karen. I was diagnosed with type 1 when I was 18 months old nearly 27 years ago. I deal with highs on a daily basis, weight gain from all the insulin I take, sores from my pump injections, nerve damage in my feet (it hurts just to make dinner), and worst of all after having my only daughter my doctor suggested I have a tubal ligation which I did and now regret horribly. I am only 28 years old and have no idea how much longer I will be alive or if I will get to watch my little girl get married or even graduate from high school. The road without the diabetes would have been my choice for sure!!
Gina great and thought provoking question. For me I would take the D road but if I knew in 1971 what I know now I woukd have done a few things different but God has taken good care of me and luckily do not have very many complications, with that in mind though what I have learned along the way I would not change for the world.
i would choose the diabetes. it has changed my life in so many ways. before i had diabetes i didnt know what taking care of myself meant. i didnt know what a little or big disease could do to your body. i didnt know how hard it was and how important it is to take care of yourself. i lost a lot of weight before diagnosed and i feel better about myself and i have more self confidence. i met some of my best friends because of the person diabetes made me. alot of people treated me differently but i met this one boy and for two years never once looked at me like i wasnt normal. and ive been with him for a year now and diabetes has helped with that. its also brought me closer to a lot of my family. ive learned how dangerous it can be but if you take care of it you wont have any problems. its my lifestyle now i wouldnt go back and change a thing.