10 Gratitudes

Ten Gratitudes of a T1D Insulin Pump Wearer:

1. A day without a blood sugar reading over 140. 

Diabetes is tough to control. Learning to count carbs and give insulin with the correct dosage and timing isn’t an exact science. When you manage to get it right for an entire day, it is time to celebrate.

2. My meter and my CGM having the same number, hence a “unicorn”. 

It is rare when everything in diabetes works exactly as it should. The cookie never has the number of carbs you think it did. The insulin never works for as long or as fast as you think it will. And your blood sugar meter almost never reads the same as your continuous glucose monitor. When it does, it makes you feel like dancing.

3. A truly naked shower. 

When you have two different plastic “sets” attached to you at all times, with different timelines for changing them, it is unusual that they need to be changed at the exact same time. When they do and there is a brief instance of your body being completely free of all devices and sticky tape, it is such a freeing, and exposed, and NAKED feeling. You feel like running around your home, screaming, “I am naaaaaaaked!!” And then you want to take a shower unencumbered. Pure bliss.

4. An infusion set going in without hitting a blood vessel or a nerve. 

It is hard to know what hides beneath your skin. When you have a half inch cannula going in, the chance of hitting something other than fat is pretty good. Sometimes you get a “gusher” that squirts out an alarming amount of blood. Sometimes, you hit a nerve that is innervated and irritated every time you move. When you hit neither, life is good.

5. A night’s sleep without an alarm. 

Thank goodness for CGM alarms. They keep us from going into a high or low blood sugar stupor in our sleep. But damn it, sometimes I want to hurl my pump against the wall when it wakes me for the 5th time in the middle of the night. A night without an alarm is heaven.

6. Spotting someone else with an insulin pump and becoming instant friends. 

When you wear one yourself, insulin pumps are very recognizable on someone else. It is NOT impolite as a T1D to run up to another pump wearer, dramatically point at their pump while flailing your other hand and gasping “Me too!! Me too!!” You jump up and down together, holding hands, yelling “Yay! Yay!” Ok, so maybe this isn’t how it always goes, but it’s close. 

In 1999, at the top of the Bright Angel Trail at the Grand Canyon, I met a mother of a pumper. She spotted me checking my blood sugar after emerging from my hike below the rim. She excitedly and breathlessly started explaining about her child, wildly gesturing to her daughter to come over so we could meet. The mom told me that she wanted her daughter to see for herself that she could do anything.

7. An A1C under 7.0. 

Hard work, rewarded.

8. The taste of sugar when you haven’t had it for months. 

There is no describing the feel of pure refined sugar pulsing through your veins. It is pure crack cocaine and the high is addictive. Life becomes more colorful, fireworks go off on your taste buds, and your mood skyrockets instantly. Duuuuuuude. (Let’s ignore, for the sake of this list, the crash that happens after the high fades.)

9. Aimee Mullins, who makes disabilities look beautiful. 

Aimee Mullins was born without shin bones. She had her legs amputated below the knee when she was one year old. She became a record-breaker at the ParaOlympic Games, a model, and an actress. She was named as one of People magazine’s “50 Most Beautiful People in the World.” She is a TED speaker and an advocate for women. In her TED talk, she says, “A prosthetic limb [or an insulin pump] doesn’t represent the need to replace loss anymore. It can stand as a symbol that the wearer has the power to create whatever it is that they want to create in that space. People that society once considered to be disabled can now become the architects of their own identities and indeed continue to change those identities by designing their bodies from a place of empowerment. And what is exciting to me so much right now is that by combining cutting-edge technology –robotics, bionics — with the age-old poetry, we are moving closer to understanding our collective humanity. I think that if we want to discover the full potential in our humanity, we need to celebrate those heartbreaking strengths and those glorious disabilities that we all have. It is our humanity, and all the potential within it, that makes us beautiful.”

10. Those people who show you they care about you by caring about your diabetes. 

I am lucky to have amazing and supportive people surrounding me. My brother sends me the most recent diabetes advancement articles. When I babysit my niece, my sister has extra snacks to supplement my chasing after her. My parents always have apple juice in their fridge and extra pump supplies in their cabinet. Friends keep Starburst in their car glove compartments.

Diabetes sucks. But, it can be amazing too. The key is finding, and then amplifying the gratitude.