A Beautiful Lie, a Painful Truth: Living With Diabetes

Rated 5/10 that day

There's an old parable about Life and Death. The story goes that they were sitting together on a park bench one beautiful day, reminiscing, when Life turned to Death and asked, "Why does everyone love me, but hate you?" Death thought for a moment, then said, "It's because you are a beautiful lie, and I am the painful truth." I heard that years ago, and there's a lot of truth to it. I'm opening with a bit of dark humor because, along with tackling a serious topic and hopefully building some community here, I want to bring a little awareness to this disease. And a little humor goes a long way toward softening some of the darker things we'll be discussing. Stay with me, and share this if it resonates with you.

Getting old is a hell of a thing. High blood pressure. Backaches. Joint aches. Tinnitus. Your vision starts to go. Your body just stops working the way it used to, and every year some new malfunction shows up. This keeps happening until something finally gets you. There's not much you can do about that part. Sure, there's medication that might buy you more time, more years, but let's be honest: nobody enjoys waking up every day to take pills and shots, sometimes several times a day, just to keep things in check.

Then there's the lovely diabetes. At first it seems like a low-level, almost harmless thing, especially with type 2. That's exactly how I treated it. So I ignored it.

About eight years ago, I was diagnosed while applying for life insurance through a well-known company. The application required a blood test, and when the results came back, they were alarming: my A1C was over 10, well beyond the accepted limit of 7 or less. Needless to say, they rejected my application, and that diagnosis went on my permanent record somewhere. I don't know exactly where, but it's out there now. My first thought was, great, I'll never get life insurance.

So I chose to ignore it. I didn't think much about it for a while, until the anxiety started creeping in. I figured I'd better get checked out properly, for two reasons: first, to see if I actually still had it, in case the insurance company had made a mistake, and second, if I did have it, to figure out what I could actually do about it.

That question sent me down a long rabbit hole, one that's eventually led me to this blog. I want to share what I've experienced and learned over the last eight years, and I hope others will join in with their own thoughts, experiences, and ideas about living with this disease. In upcoming posts, I'll get into just how debilitating it can be, and how I came to understand why it's now listed as a disability on job applications. I've noticed that ever since I started checking that box, I stop hearing back from employers. Hmm.

When did you first realize something was wrong and what the one thing you'd wish someone would've told you when you first found out? Was it a diagnosis like mine, or did it creep up on you slowly? I'll be sharing more of my journey in the posts ahead, but I'd love to hear yours too.