In an earlier post, I told you about the nurse who told me I had to choose to learn to give myself a shot or I wouldn’t live a good and healthy life. That was the first time I was told it was my choice.
Another day in the hospital I was in the conference room with my family learning how to pull insulin into the syringe I think and the cafeteria delivered my dinner. I had ordered chicken tenders and broccoli and macaroni and cheese. I should’ve known better… hospital food isn’t good and I love my food. I gave myself the insulin needed for the meal with help from the nurse and began to eat. Boy was I disappointed. I ate the chicken and tried both the broccoli and macaroni but didn’t eat much of either… you can guess why. GROSS.
It was a matter of minutes that the teacher realized I wasn’t eating and started yelling at me that I had to eat everything I ordered, that I had counted my carbs and it didn’t matter if I didn’t like it, I had to eat it all.
I slowly and sadly put the food in my mouth and wound up back in my room crying in my moms arms. I had started to panic and got overwhelmed so they let me leave for a few minutes. Every meal, was a choice. Everything I put in my body was a choice. The shots were a choice. Exercise was a choice. For an indecisive person, that’s a lot of choices with pretty dramatic outcomes.
On average, a person with type 1 diabetes makes 180 more decisions per day than the average person without diabetes.
Every day is a choice. It’s the decision that I know pricking my finger is going to hurt, they’re lying to you to make you feel better if they say it doesn’t hurt anymore it’s just that you get used to it hurting, and I choose to prick any way. It’s knowing that my shot or injecting my infusion set will hurt, but I do it anyway. Choosing where to put my pump. Choosing where to insert my infusion set or shot. Do I give insulin for this snack before I workout or not? Do I pack an extra snack today or not? God, I just want to eat this with friends I just met and not have to be weird and pull out this life-giving machine… and choosing to do so anyway.
When I say I’m a good diabetic, I mean it. And I’m DANG PROUD of it. Because I choose hundreds of times a day to be one. But understand that it’s hard to really understand how many choices extra a day we are making because of diabetes. Can you think of 180 decisions you made today?
So, yes, it’s really hard for me to be sympathetic with students who tell me all the shows and movies they’re watching but don’t get their physical activity. Or don’t do their homework. Or don’t get a job.
People ask me how I did as much as I did at Berry all the time.. how’d you have 4 jobs, do research, play soccer, exercise, have fun, go to church, and get good grades? IT. WAS. HARD.
But I chose to. I made the choice to do each of those things every day and just like my diabetes taught me, there wasn’t much thinking after that. I said I was going to be a great student, a great employee, a great teammate, a great scientist… a great diabetic.
And I did that.
So for fellow diabetics, I encourage you to make your choice and stick with it.
For friends and family, I hope you can see how big this disease is in their daily life. Help them with their choices. Encourage their choice to be a good diabetic. And know that it’s constant. Constant choices. Constant decisions. And then love them.
HP