Patience is Virtue, Even with Type 1 Diabetes

10/08/08 Type I Diabetes or Juvenile Diabetes

I want immediate results. If my blood sugar level is high, it needs to be normal within an hour. And the food I eat to treat a low had better flood my system within 20 minutes. I often can barely wait the five seconds it takes my blood glucose monitor to reveal its result. I program my insulin pump like a hyper-speed texter. Why am I so impatient? It’s simple: I want this disease out of the way

As a classic type A personality, diabetes does not bode well for me. I cannot say that I have grown accustomed to the interference, in spite of the 18 years I have endured its presence. I do not handle well things that would impede my progress toward my goals.

Any disease, disorder or deformity interrupts normal function. Knowing things could be worse does not placate my frustration. I have tried to be patient. I have tried to “let go” and “live in the moment.” Such attempts have only exacerbated the problem. What kind of life have I led if so many of my lived moments have been spent monitoring and injecting and balancing food?

I could blame my dysfunction on the Internet. I could claim that the world at my fingertips accessible via the Internet has eroded my ability to wait. There might even be some truth in the argument, but it would not be entirely honest. No, the honest reason I am so impatient is because I am tired; I am tired of this disease and all the baggage that comes along with it. I am tired of having to fit the pieces of my world together, when the ones attributed to diabetes do not stay in place. I want to live my life and not feel as if I am living some facsimile of it. I want t be calm and to be patient.

Every day is different, yet every day pushes just as hard as the last. I can’t sit and do nothing. Indecision would allow life to make the decisions for me. I am too driven for that. Or maybe too impatient.

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.