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Diabetes is never just one disease to handle. Sure, technically, medically, or definitively, diabetes is simply one disease. But in the daily management of the disease, it's a complex ball of diseases and risks.

Most of us understand the complications that come along with diabetes. We know that better control lowers our risk for all of those complications. We understand that those complications sometimes have a mind of their own, that despite years of good control they might still creep into our lives.

There's also the increased risk or correlations that come along with diabetes. The thyroid issues, Celiac disease, and many other autoimmune syndromes run higher in diabetics. We know that these are uncontrollable. They are simply a reaction that our body has completely separate from any action we take.

Alongside the complications and correlations, there are things like hypoglycemic unawareness, ketoacidosis, seizures, and susceptibility to infections. These things run parallel to diabetes. They are things that flare when all the factors are right. They are the things that come after years of managing a disease like diabetes.

Diabetes is not the only disease that entails so many "side effects." Others like Lupus, Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome, or MS, have issues that develop or symptoms that persist despite treatment. Each disease is a conglomerate of multiple diseases, risks, and possibilities.

Diabetes isn't the kind of disease that you can take a pill and never worry about it again. It isn't the type that lets you undergo definitive treatment and possibly rid yourself of the problem forever. You can't have surgery and take it away. Simply, there isn't one treatment that seals the deal.

Even with treatment, diabetes is often uncontrollable. It has a mind of its own. It takes countless hours of management, strict daily regimens, and an endless amount of finger sticks to even begin to reign in the disease. Despite those efforts, it still plays into the minute changes in our bodies and our lives, from hormones to stress.

I don't like to say that diabetes is treatable. It certainly isn't curable, yet. It isn't entirely preventable. It isn't even manageable or controllable. I'm not sure what describes the way we take care of diabetes; except that it's simply that, we do take care of it as much as we can. We strive to have perfection and hope that somewhere along the way, our diabetes decides to play nice.

But sometimes diabetes doesn't play nice at all.