Now

I still seem to be going through a certain mourning. After 7 and a half years I should be over it right? That's what people keep telling me. That and it's not cancer. I really appreciate the thought and feel very lucky that it isn't cancer and that we get to keep Adele for now, but it still is Type 1 Diabetes and unless you're a fellow Type 1 gamer or you've lived in our shoes you have no idea what it's like.

Going through the day to day motions of constant monitoring, counting, calculating, bolusing, testing, guesstimating, not sleeping through the night... now seems somewhat normal. We've become very good at making it seem like we have everything under control at all times which is really not the case. Experienced Type 1 gamers are very good at creating the appearance of health and being normal. And no one really wants to hear about it all after a while. They just want to move on. For us, that old news isn't going away anytime soon. It's in our face 24/7.

So, we seem to have the day to day details dailed in for now. What about the future? I've been thinking about Adele's life when she grows up as a Type 1 diabetic. How will she deal with all of this extra day to day Type 1 work on top of everything else that she'll need to do like work, meeting deadlines, career, family...? At 22 years old, she'll already have 20 years of Type 1 Diabetes. Each and every day of Type 1 gaming takes it's toll on the player's health. You have an organ that no longer works, so the game consists of trying your best to do the job that the organ (pancreas) once did. Artificial organ functionality is never as good as the real thing. Each minute that blood sugar is out of range brings us one step closer to complications. Insulin, along with all of the latest available technology, is not a cure, it's life-support.

We have never really sat Adele down and explained to her the possible complications that she may face in her future. But, she's caught on that playing the Type 1 game is not just about needles. She seems to have figured out that it goes beyond that. She really wants a family when she grows up and asked us the other week if having Diabetes could prevent her from having children. Then, as she was testing her blood sugar a few days later she told me that she's sometimes afraid that she won't have any blood left in her fingers and that she won't be able to test. This week she told me she is sometimes afraid that she'll go really low and will die. We reassure her when she has thoughts and questions like these, but she surely still feels our worry. But, she's a kid, so a few minutes later she's already forgotten about the whole thing and is busy thinking about what she'd like to play next. She has presence. She lives in the moment. She lives in the now. Having observed this, I challenged myself to be more like her, to try to live more in the moment. It's strange, but this seemingly simple decision prompted an entire shift in my mood. Instead of my mindset being 10+ years in the future or a few years in the past, I concentrated on NOW. That night, I tested Adele while she was sleeping and her blood glucose was good. I knew that for now she was okay. I took a few minutes to cherish and take in that feeling of okayness. I appreciated the moment. When you think about it, the now is the only thing that is a sure thing. The nature of the Type 1 game makes it very difficult to live in the now since the objective is to look at where the numbers are, have been and then try to predict where they're going. Not exactly living in the moment... But I think that it's still important to be conscious of exactly where we're at and to try to maximize our time in the Now dimension and be more at peace.

So that's my new challenge, to develop a new habit of 'just being' more often... I invite you to give it a try as well... and let me know how it works out.