I don't like to post "downers" on Blogabetes unless I can turn them into cautionary morals, or calls to action (either on our own behalf, or on the behalf of all people with diabetes) -- most of us have too much negativity in our lives already. That said, life has been throwing me the sorts of curve balls that force me to think more of survival, mortality, and quality of life than I am comfortable dealing with.

Let me set the scene by saying that when I was born, I had three living grandparents and four living great-grandparents. The last of my great-grandparents died a few days before my seventeenth birthday; the last of my grandparents, several months before I turned 35. Of those living when I was born, my great-grandparents lived to at least their mid-eighties, whereas one grandmother did not make it to 79, and my grandfather was killed by a bus at age 82. In short, I expect members of my family to live into our eighties or nineties, and I believe that my grandparents did not live as long as their parents.

My parents are in their mid seventies. Like them, and their parents before them, I am having trouble dealing with the reality that their physical and mental abilities are declining, and that the time is approaching in which my sister and I will be the "oldest" generation. Or more accurately for us, the last generation, as neither of us has children (nor do any of our first cousins). Our parents, and our finances, have caused us to lose touch with much of our extended family. I have met very few of my cousins once-removed, even though all of them are younger than my parents -- some, closer to my age than theirs -- and fewer yet of my second cousins or more-extended family. The health issues that my great-grandparents encountered in their eighties and nineties are visiting my parents now, with the same degree of intensity. Follow this on with my diabetes diagnosis at about fifteen years younger than my mother's, and you've got some idea where this all is heading.

Perhaps I would be a bit less frightened-to-death if I were in a better position financially -- if I had savings, rather than debts; if I owned a home and a car, rather than living with a boyfriend and traveling by bicycle or public transit; if I knew neither my sister or I would end up (figuratively or literally) alone and out in the cold. But life is what it is, and what it is right now... is scary.

This past week we've found out in short order that Mom has had some trouble with her aortic valve and that it needs replacement in short order. (She's in surgery as I'm writing this.) In general terms, this is a low-risk surgery, especially as it was caught before more severe damage (such as heart failure or general systems failure) had occurred. Even counting Mom's obesity and her type 2 diabetes (controlled by glipizide and Avandia), the doctors tell us the odds are very good. Mom has been a bit more concerned: eighteen years ago, cardiac bypass surgery for her mother went swiftly downhill from "routine" when the surgeons found Grandma had a large aortic aneurysm, and that both her lungs were in very poor condition. Grandma spent most of the remaining six months of her life unresponsive to everyone and everything around her as her systems slowly failed. In the intervening years, screening technologies have improved and screening protocols have become more stringent to the point where those sorts of issues should be all but eliminated. Notwithstanding Mom is, understandably, scared the same thing could happen to her. Meanwhile, a few miles away, Dad is in a nursing home, Alzheimer's progressing as it did with his grandfather, his mother (and all her siblings), and his sister.

The pundits say that the Millenials will be the first generation to have a shorter projected lifespan than their parents. The indications I'm seeing are that those predictions may be as many as three generations too generous -- but that could just be the depressive nature of living with diabetes.