I wake up rested realizing that I have slept through the entire night. I instantly smile as soon as I open my eyes. It’s a Monday morning but I certainly don’t have the Monday blues. I have never felt so alive, so filled with pure joy and excitement. I am truly high on life.
The
corner of the kitchen counter seems so empty without the diabetes supplies that
had become a physical part of the landscape after so long. And the cabinet which once housed hundreds of
dollars’ worth of Diabetes supplies is now used for drinking glasses. As I grab a coffee mug for my tea, Adele
stumbles out of bed with the brightest smile on her face. I no longer have to remind her to test her
blood sugar before breakfast. Her half
empty purse sitting on the table no longer contains her blood sugar tester and
fast-acting sugar. The food scale that
used to live next to the coffee machine now lives in the cabinet since it is
very rarely used. The kitchen seems much
more spacious, almost empty.
As
Adele makes her own breakfast, we just see food. This food seems much more appealing without
the numbers. It’s like being in a
different dimension. Everything has
changed.
I
feel like I am now on a permanent vacation even if I am not even close to
retirement still working full-time. I
can’t really explain the feeling. The
best analogy would be like instantaneously being transported from a noisy, crowded city
street in a huge city to an empty field out in the country. The sudden silence would make the peace and
quiet very noticeable thus heightening everything else like the feeling of the sun
on your face, the warm breeze on your skin and the sound of birds chirping. Even the smells would be amplified. The empty space and silence would make
everything feel so real, yet almost surreal.
Like a dream.
Adele’s
finger tips are starting to heal. The
scars from hundreds of thousands of finger pokes will always be there, but she notices that
they feel different. She is slowly
beginning to regain her ability to feel what she touches. And she no longer hooks her insulin pump
tubing on the cabinet knobs or bangs her infusion site since she no longer
needs to wear the pump. She notices its
absence in the little things like while getting dressed or while showering.
The
emptiness in my mind feels strange at first.
It’s like I now have access to everything else that was hidden behind
the constant worry, analyzing and thoughts involved in being Adele’s pseudo
pancreas. So many things that I had forgotten
were there suddenly come up to my mind’s surface. The closure is liberating beyond words. The simplicity brought back into our lives is
simply amazing. I feel like an
incredible weight has been lifted from my shoulders.
A
part of me that had died has been resurrected.
This one thing has changed everything.
Often,
when I can’t sleep, I dream of how things will be and how I will feel when my
dream of a cure for Type 1 Diabetes comes true.
I try to allow myself to truly and fully feel what it will be like. I imagine the small details, the good stuff. And that’s when I usually end up falling
asleep.
I
can’t wait to wake up one day and realize that this dream is no longer just a dream...
