Embracing Change and Celebrating Life
By Rebecca G.
I knew something was wrong. It wasn’t that I was pregnant in my thirties or that the summer was excessively hot as they suggested. It was something else and I knew in my heart it wasn’t right. The voice inside me knew something was wrong, yet I felt like I could get no one to hear my concerns.
I was pregnant with my second child when I found myself admitted to the hospital. Can I go home and pack? No. Can I still go to the family wedding this weekend? No. Will my baby be okay? Possibly. I sat in the hospital bed speechless. I was told I would remain there until I could learn to carb count and administer insulin injections. I was told I was to remain there until I could adequately protect the baby growing inside me.
Random Thoughts and Fear
My head spun with random thoughts. I tried to process the diagnosis, but I could not. Hearing I had gestational diabetes was a shock, yet strangely it came as a relief. Finally, I had some answers. Then my mind traveled south and many states away to my father who was dying from complications due to his type 2 diabetes. Knowing the state of my diabetic father quickly whipped away my relief and the revelation of the diagnosis hit me like a Mack truck. Travel was no longer an option, saying goodbye to my father in person was not possible, nor was attending his funeral. I pushed the tears aside and powered through. My unborn baby deserved my attention and not my self-pity.
Managing Through the Early Months
Within twenty-four hours I learned how to inject myself with insulin and I learned to count carbs. I learned as much as I could so I could move forward with life and my pregnancy. Despite my best efforts, my gestational diabetes was impossible to control. I did everything I was told and yet I struggled to control my sugar levels. This baffled my medical team and it frustrated the type A personality I possessed.
Months later I delivered a healthy baby boy and magically my diabetes disappeared. I was thrilled that I could return to normal life. It was wonderful, simply wonderful. My struggle in pregnancy and recovery were so conflicting my doctor asked if he could write about my case in a medical journal. I laughed and agreed, then a let out a huge sigh of relief. I was not my father and I would not battle with diabetes past these few months of pregnancy.
At Thanksgiving dinner I ate a piece of pumpkin pie with piles of whip cream. I was in heaven and I enjoyed that pie more than I can articulate. This enjoyment was more mental then physical as it represented all that was taken from me for months.
Accepting and Embracing Change
A few weeks later I found myself back at the doctor. This time I was at an endocrinologist. This time my diagnosis was not gestational diabetes and instead I was told I was a LADA. A 1.5 diabetic who isn’t quite type 1 or type 2. I was told I was part of the new phenomenon – adults who find themselves as type 1 diabetes later in life. My mind quickly shifted back to my friend Dawn in second grade. She was a type 1 diabetic who was given Coke and vanilla wafers in school. I was not fearful as I remember her with fond memories. And then I stopped breathing - again. My mind quickly jumped to my father, his long fight against diabetes, and the death that occurred just months in the past.
I sat and stared blankly. I knew I would be forever sick with a chronic illness. I wonder if this is how my mother felt when she was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis when I was six months old. I could not believe that my children would repeat my childhood of being the caregivers for their mother. My emotional rollercoaster ended quickly. I returned home to see my children. My beautiful daughter and infant son were awaiting me. And that was all I needed.
I had a choice. Diabetes did not control me. It was not the beginning of the end. It was simply a new way of life. A life I would embrace because my children needed me. They deserved a normal childhood and one where they could be the child.
At Ten Years, I Celebrate Life
This summer will mark my ten-year anniversary as a LADA. I look at my diabetes as a gift of change. I chose to embrace it and not fight it. I educated myself about the illness and I changed my lifestyle to best manage it. The last ten years have taught me that diabetes is not a death sentence. While my father chose to ignore it, I did not and I will not. I manage the disease and I use it to my advantage. I am healthier now than I was before diagnosis. I have taken steps to eat better, take vitamins, sleep as I should, and strive for work/life balance. I feel good - better now than I have in my entire life. My allergies are virtually gone and the migraines that plagued me for decades have retreated.
If I ever question myself I am reminded quickly of the gifts diabetes has given me. I see my healthy son, I feel his bear hug, or I hear his words of pride and praise when he tells someone new that his mom is a diabetic who takes good care of herself. In the last ten years, I’ve taught my children that quality of life is a choice. I’ve done this with words, but more importantly, I’ve done this through my actions.
The day I was diagnosed with gestational diabetes I chose my son and his survival. The day I was diagnosed as a LADA I chose to be a survivor.
Today I view each new day as an opportunity and I am thankful that I can embrace it for all it offers.
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