One of the first things I do when I get to work every morning is check my email. Most mornings I get an email from a person in my family that simply says "Good morning!" It's a nice way to say hi and keep in touch with people who live far away. Ok, it's a nice way to procrastinate, too.

This morning when I responded to that email, I remarked that I was ready to go back to bed. Sure, it was barely 9 a.m., but I was plain mad at diabetes today for reasons I'll explain in another post.

"Bob" said he was ready to go back to bed, too. He had started on medicine today for a condition that runs in his family. He knew he needed to just bite the bullet and take the pills, but he was afraid of side effects, afraid of the "life sentence" of taking a pill a day.

At the time, I wasn't trying to compare our medical struggles, but I told Bob to embrace the medicine, relish the knowledge that he was taking care of himself and being proactive about his healthcare. In the back of my mind, though, I was still mad at diabetes.

It wasn't until I sent an email to my sister to vent about Bob's "life sentence" of taking a pill a day, did I realize how mad I was and that I had, indeed, compared diabetes to the condition Bob is dealing with. I can't tell you how many times I've heard someone say "If all I had to do was to take a pill a day to manage my diabetes I'd be a happy person." A pill a day versus blood sugar checks, insulin calculations, carb counts, variations on a theme and the knowledge that doing it all wrong equals potential complications. Yes, I'd take the pill over the management system we have now.

My sister said she could tell I was mad. "I've said it before and I'll say it again," she wrote. "I don't know how you do it every day."

Most days, I wrote, it's just part of my routine. Most days I check my sugar, count carbs and take insulin. Most days I don't even notice. Today, though, I just don't want to deal with it.