How Diabetes Affects Me

I do not have diabetes. I do not know the sting of a needle to keep my blood sugars level. I do not know the stigma of growing up learning how to become a woman and how to deal with a difficult disease. Diabetes does not have a direct impact on my life.


Although diabetes has no control over me, physically, I do feel the tugs at my heart emotionally. My sister has T1D. She has had this disease since she was fourteen years old. I was about to graduate high school when she found out. I remember we used to go school shopping for clothes and the time she tried on a size zero pair of shorts and even those were too big for her. I felt, that at the time, I was a pretty fit person and my clothing was comfortable at a size four. To see my sister waste away with no real cause was really troublesome. She used to carry around a jug of water with her everywhere she went. She was always thirsty, still eating, and getting skinnier by the week.


I was partly relieved when my parents found out she was diabetic. Some might think that as a sibling I might have been jealous of her small size... as teenage girls do tend to compare their bodies... but I wasn't. I truly worried she was getting too thin, too fast, and obviously still eating regularly. It was a relief to know that she wasn't going to die by starvation and that T1D could be dealt with.


It took my sister a while to get used to the medications. The levels were always off. Her meters wouldn't always be correct. She would have some emotional difficulties, as a young teenager, that would throw her levels out of whack. Life is tremendously challenging for any adolescent. Add in the fact that if she doesn't get her blood levels under control, she could go into a coma or die. That must've been a very frightening thought.


I have to admit I don't know as much about T1D as I should. I have just recently learned how to really communicate with my sister. Eleven years later, after her initial diagnosis, and we can finally find a reason to relate. She doesn't seem to see me as the "unaffected one who doesn't understand" anymore. I'm learning to realize that while she may put off the sense that she's got diabetes under control, that she really does need support. She needs to know I worry about her. I want to know how her doctor appointments go and if things are improving. I want to know more about T1D. I feel, as her sister, I do owe that to her.


I strive to continue in my journey to show my sister my support and love for her. I don't want to always talk about her disease because that is not all she is. She is a loving, sweet, thoughtful, beautiful person inside and out. I would rather talk about those things, but sometimes we do need to speak of the major part of her life, T1D. It is no longer a skeleton in our closet. It's a part of both of our lives because diabetes does affect me.

http://www.fightingtheunseen.com
http://tudiabetes.com