Legacy

Filed in archive Family Matters on January 31, 2006

Have you been experiencing excessive thirst? Frequent urination? Has your energy decreased?

And so on. I sat in the doctor's office during one of my thrice-yearly appointments, automatically answering the questions that were so familiar, I knew them by rote.

I also knew I was about to get a giant needle stuck in my arm, to withdraw the blood they would check to find any hint of the dreaded disease.

So far, I'd been lucky. I hadn't acquired diabetes. But it was something I constantly dreaded, a heavy cloud of the possibility of a future filled with daily needles and sickness.

A huge portion of my family members, mostly females, have either Type I or Type II diabetes. Most of them have Type II, acquired in adulthood.

So I get checked every four months, and recently have stepped up my prevention efforts, including switching to a vegan diet.

But on a recent visit home, I lost something: my constant dread of diabetes. Why should I, or anyone, live in fear? A look at the wonderful women in my family is what spurred the change.

My Aunt Lulu, who developed diabetes at age 28, goes out dancing almost every night. My eleven-year-old cousin, Laura, spent a rainy Saturday afternoon decorating her dialysis machine with pink ribbons and Hello Kitty stickers to make it pretty. And my wonderful Aunt Elizabeth, when asked why at age 42, she married a 23-year-old, she retorted: "Because I'm fabulous."

Well, she is. And so are you. We are so lucky to live in these times, when new developments are happening every day, when we have the best options available for both treatment and prevention. It's fabulous to be alive, to be experiencing the rich wonders of the world, and there's absolutely no reason why our lives shouldn't reflect that.

This blog will celebrate living, whether you have diabetes, love someone who does, or simply want to find out more about the subject. This blog is for all those wonderful women, men, and children who continue--or want to begin-- to live extraordinary lives every day, when nothing, not even diabetes, will hold them back.

(Photo courtesy of Tulare Public Library)