In the Trenches: Diabetes Dad

I was engaged in a conversation yesterday with a good friend, and we came up with the following question: When it comes to diabetes, are your tears via a basal-tear rate, or a bolus-tear rate?

When you think about everything that happens in our diabetes world, do you sort of cry a little bit many times or do you work to keep everything in moving forward and once in a while the tears just pour out as if your eyes are just “bolusing” tears? A lot of little cries, or one big cry occurring when needed?

I’m absolutely amazed that no matter how positive-a-life I try to make sure our kids have, out of nowhere it seems…bang: tears. So I’m definitively a bolus-tear-kind-of-guy.

I also know that it’s okay. It’s good to clear it out sometimes. A release. I know some people get sad every day, perhaps even cry a tear or two as well. They are a basal-tears-kind-of-person…a little, many times. Clearly no one enjoys any of this, but make sure you smile through those bolus/basal/tears every now and again as well.

Smile at an accomplishment, a joke, something ‘gone-good.’ When they come, make sure you enjoy those things as well.

My mom tells me that it’s because of my heritage that I read the obituaries every day. It’s not a morbid thing (ever notice everyone dies in alphabetical order…except in Florida?), I just check it as I read the news. I’m sure a professional would tell me that it ‘means’ something, but to me, it’s just checking out what is happening in the world around me…another page to the news, as it were, for me.

But here is my observation: Every single listing had a life. Whether they were good or bad, happy or sad, rich or poor, in perfect health or suffered forever, what they leave behind is just that…left behind.

My point?

On this earth, we all have just one shot to redo anything every day. Think about that sentence. I will always choose to live this life and grab every ounce of enjoyment out of it as possible. For me, and for others. If we can all try to leave this world just a tad better than how we found it; that’s a life worth living in my mind.

So I may be a bolus-tear-kind-of-guy when needed, but during all other times, I choose to be an ocean-full of grabbing this life for all the wonder, laughter, and good it does have to offer, even with diabetes. Come swim with me.

I am a Diabetes Dad.