It's so easy to fall into the trap of thinking that just because I don't have to take a pill to control my Type 2 diabetes, I'm "cured". After all, that's what so many people in my condition were told, so many times, over the past half-century. Some are still told that today. And given that most of the time, my blood glucose levels stay between 85 and 120, with the occasional high postprandial excursion (which occasionally -- like, when I'm low and having dinner at a restaurant -- will lead to a high fasting reading the next morning), there's nothing to alarm the unsuspecting practitioner that back in 2002, at fifty pounds heavier than I am today, the doctor's meter read 170 mg/dl after a ten-hour fast, with an HbA1c of 7.8. Or in lay terms, "I had diabeetus".

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I know this is not a popular view, but I believe I will live a long life and all of it with diabetes. No, I do not believe there will be a cure in my lifetime. Yeah, that’s kind of crappy to say, but I just don’t see enough progress happening (of course I’m really an outsider when it comes to all things cure related) and there is so much money in the treatment of diabetes right now that I think the focus and priorities are not in a place to support a cure.
 

That’s not to say that I don’t think there will be significant progress on the cure front, I just don’t think I’ll live out my days as a non-diabetic. I believe I’ll be wearing my pancreas on my hip in some shape or another forever. And that’s a long forever, people.
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In my previous post, I took a few examples of STAR TREK's medical technology and cultural biases to
speculate on whether or not diabetes mellitus might exist among humans living in that fictional universe, and
some methods by which it might be treated.

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With all of my STARFLEET chapter's preparations for the new STAR TREK movie opening next Friday, I decided to take a few minutes' retrospective to consider how diabetes might be treated in the STAR TREK universe, and how I expect it might be treated in Real Life.

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The title reads "Cancer drugs halt type 1 diabetes in mice." My first response is: oh my gosh! How can this be??!??!! Then I read further. I can feel the emotions starting to get the best of me.

Do I break out in song? Do I start dancing around the room? Do I cry? What if this is it? What if this breakthrough is the one that we all have been striving for?

The article explains that research has shown two cancer drugs, Gleevec and Sutent, to halt type 1 diabetes occurrence in mice. It also says that up to 80 percent of the mice with type 1 diabetes went into remission from the drug. Eighty percent!

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From the shore, I watch a life I used to know - the seas swirling rough and rapid.

I sit, wrapped in the embrace of a sun I thought I'd never see.

I am unencumbered by worry.  I reach my fingers to the sky, letting the light kiss their smooth tips.  

I think about the storm and how it came, sudden and swift.  

I think about the years of maddening calculations and missteps.  The whirlpools and the hurricanes.  The lashing wind and rain.  The dark days and endless nights.

I think about the fleet of ships that journeyed at my side.  

I think about those that were lost.

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