Burden in My Hand

07/18/08 Type I Diabetes or Juvenile Diabetes

The Diabetes Hands Foundation has created an activity to raise awareness of the emotional implications that stem from diabetes.

I recently helped conduct this activity with a local type 1 diabetes support group, the Sugar Free Gang, at their summer day camp. Twenty adolescents with markers sat around a picnic table. The Gang’s founder, Joanne, talked them through the premise of the activity and then gave them simple instructions. “Use your hand like a piece of paper and write on it what diabetes means to you.”

The teens glanced nervously and awkwardly at one another, and then fidgeted with their markers. The strain of selecting the perfect word to describe their emotions was evident. Soon, however, brows knitted, heads tilted, and faces cleared into a resigned knowledge; they had their words.

They wrote in green, red, orange, purple, blue, and black. They checked spelling with me before scrawling on their palms and then decorating across their fingers. The teens furtively glanced at each other’s hands and laughed or smiled at what was written. I looked down at my own palm, took my black marker and wrote.

Joanne called the group to order. “Now, I’d like you to hold up your palm and explain why you chose the word written.” She held up her own hand, displaying “Poked” in red with a mass of dots bedecking her fingertips. “One of the most difficult aspects of my job is teaching people how to test their sugar,” she said. “If I had diabetes I think this would be one of the most difficult daily regimens.” The group nodded agreement and then began their presentations:

Worried: Because you don’t know what each day will bring.

Frustrating: Because regardless of how hard you try, it doesn’t always work.

Life: Because having diabetes and taking care of yourself becomes your life.

Just is: Because that’s exactly what it is; nothing can be done to change it.

24/7: Because you have this disease every minute of every day.

Bleeding Inside: Because this is how it feels to deal with the depression after acquisition. 

My turn came. Unrelenting: Because regardless of how many years I spend with this disease, it never gives up, never grows tired, and never backs down. They all understood, not just my word, but everyone else’s. This was a communal knowledge that none wanted but all experienced, and now our hands were testament to that burden.

We then grouped thematically and a photographer snapped pictures for the Web site. The atmosphere returned to the lighter state it had held before the activity began. The banter and laughter of the teens, who positioned and preened for the camera, was a staunch reminder that we are all encumbered with the weight of this disease, but that it doesn’t need to keep us down. Together, we can break free of the words and let them slide silently beneath our skin.

Eric Devine, 30, has lived with type 1 diabetes since he was 12. He lives in upstate New York with his wife and two daughters where he works as a high school English teacher. Devine is an avid writer and is currently seeking publication of two Young Adult novel manuscripts.