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Last week was Invisible Illness Week which I missed thanks to my crazy work schedule and inactivity here in the blogosphere. But there was a "30 Things About My Invisible Illness" meme floating around that I really wanted to get in on. So here it is:

1. The illness(es) I live with is/are: Type 1 Diabetes, PCOS, and endometriosis

2. I was diagnosed with it in the year: 1993 and 2009

3. But I had symptoms since: Two to three weeks before. I got sick very quickly with the D. The PCOS/endometriosis took several years to diagnosis.

4. The biggest adjustment I’ve had to make is: I have no idea considering that I don't remember what life was like before this. I'd say in recent years, the biggest thing has been bolusing for even the tiniest amount of carbs that go into my mouth.

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I don't expect everyone I've ever met to remember that I'm diabetic. There was a period that I barely told anyone about it, unless I was absolutely forced to. So how could they remember if they never knew?

I do expect my close friends, family and important people (i.e. my coworkers, my professors, etc) to remember that I'm diabetic. After all, most of them see the daily battle that diabetes is. How can you forget that?

But so often, my friends forget. Sometimes I feel like my own family forgets. They get involved in their own lives, their own problems and forget about this portion of my life. Yet, I can't excuse them.

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Thanks to En Vogue for those lyrics. We got back from vacation late Friday night but I'm still feeling my way back to my "new normal".

10 days in New Mexico in a travel trailer with kids (ages 4 & 1) - it went really well!  Yes, that's shock you see in my punctuation!  We went places and saw people and ran, ran, ran.  The weather was beautiful, highs hovering around 80.  They have gotten a lot of rain and some Dolly-effect flooding this summer, so it was quite lush by New Mexico standards.

Unfortunately, I didn't replace my workouts as I had hoped I would.  Read that as "hoped, but didn't make definite plans for ahead of time." I need to remember that for the future.  On the plus side, I was much more active than usual.

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I generally consider myself to be fairly mature for my age. I've attributed my maturity to the experiences I've been through, mostly from dealing with a chronic illness from such a young age. It definitely puts a different spin on your whole life. You consider life as temporary, something to be cherished. You know you don't have all the time in the world.

Despite the maturity, I've still got growing up to do. There are things that diabetes and all my other experiences haven't taught me. I still have the passion and will of my youth to contend against on a regular basis. I'm holding on to pieces of that youth for good reason, seeing where maturity can change life for the worse in some ways.

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No matter how commonplace diabetes has become, I still react the same way when I see a person with diabetes in the wild. I still feel a special connection despite the fact that I don’t physically share the disease. I get excited, like I’ve just spotted a rare plant species or a member of a secret underground society - whose cover is only blown with the slightest hint of pump-tubing. I feel like there should be a unique handshake or some sort of enigmatic hand gesture.

I walked by an all-glass conference room at work the other day and saw two guys sitting at a long spruce-colored table and glancing up at the large flat-panel monitor on the wall. As I walked by, I saw one guy begin to unzip a small black pouch.

"Hmm," I thought. "I think I just saw a diabetic."

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A friend emailed me this week after someone posted something on their blog implying that his characterization of his daughter's illness as a "bad thing" was wrong.  I've heard this kind of argument before about disability or brokenness.  That somehow, manageable chronic disease (particularly disease that onsets in childhood) can't be a "bad" thing because it's a part of a person - or because it's helped to shape a person.  Well, I call B.S.

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Most of the time, diabetes is a heavy weight to carry.  It overwhelms the body, the soul, and the mind sometimes.  During sick times, the physical management is challenging.  During healthy times, the physical management is challenging.  During all times, the mental and emotional management is near impossible.

But even with the load of diabetes on my back, sometimes it smiles on me.  Sometimes, it shows me the kindness of others in a way I would never have experienced without it.  Sometimes, it brings the most light-filled, heartening, beautiful people into my world.  Sometimes, it shows me my own true grit, my own ability to overcome extraordinary challenges.  Diabetes opens doors that, without the weight of chronic illness, would stay closed.

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Nicole recently blogged about her late aunt's battle with the dual diagnosis of depression and diabetes, and wondered why -- with modern medical care available to her, and with prescriptions to deal with both illnesses -- her aunt took neither, allowing her body to destroy itself piece by piece, taking only the medications prescribed to her for pain.

While I don't presume to have known Nicole's aunt Margaret, I can see a number of issues that can complicate the combined issue of self-care and chronic disease in general, and diabetes in particular.

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My father’s sister Margaret died of complications from diabetes at the age of 51.  It was an awful thing to watch.  The years between her fortieth birthday and her dying day were overfilled with pain.  She had issues with her toes, issues with her eyes, she had multiple strokes.  My father, a decorated Marine and police officer, held his little sister’s hand through too much heartache.  When she died, in a nursing home, too young and too sick for words, he cried.  

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