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Fatherhood and Diabetes

When I was growing up, I had an overwhelming impression that my father was in control of whatever situation he found himself in even if that situation was throwing a golf club at a tree or tossing suitcases as he packed the trunk of the car. He was IN CONTROL of that situation.

The older I get I see how ridiculous that memory was. Like me, he was just a dad, struggling to make sense of the clamor and confusion of life. The hardest part for me being a father with type 1 diabetes is that there are many times when my son can see that I am not in control, when he has had to ask me if I am all right, when he has had to force me to drink some juice, when he is afraid that I am just not there.

There are so many little moments of connection in my 36 years of being a diabetic, and the 14 years of being a dad, that I have missed, that I wasn't available to my son because I was busy dealing with a low blood sugar episode and too overwhelmed trying to figure out what was going on. It's the single biggest heartbreak of this disease.

All the best,