Sweet Victory

I'm so grateful for all of the comments I get on this blog, but I've always been partial to Al's. Why? Because he's not a diabetic. His son is and he reads my blog for insight into how to be a better parent. As a parent of two little riddles, myself, I soooo get that. At any rate, Al posted a great comment last week: "Have you always been so successful with controlling your bg levels? My son really does "care" about his diabetes, but struggles with roller coaster bgs. In your early 20's at college, were you as successful controlling your diabetes as you are now? He adds: Right now he is very scared of lows and therefore runs high a lot." Since going on the pump eight years ago, I haven't had an A1C over 7 that I can recall. Before that, I had tons of 7's with a smattering of 8's. During phases in my life where I didn't test as often, I'd rarely go beyond 8 but do recall a few 9's and one time (I think it was college) being...

When I was in high school, I was one of 4 diabetics (that I know of). This week, the second one of the other 3 died of diabetic complications. And yet, even writing that, it sounds absurd. After all, I'm sitting here, more than 25 years into this thing, without a single complication and a nearly non-diabetic blood sugar of 137, 30 minutes after eating a bag of chips. There's a lot I don't know, but probably the biggest thing I don't know is why this disease is fairly easy for me, compared to so many Type 1 diabetics. On one hand, I could take the credit - say I *care* more than others, or stay up on the technology more than others or say I can count carbs faster and more accurate than others. Those things could be true. But on the other hand, maybe I'm just lucky. Maybe my body chemistry causes me to process artificial insulin the way the chemists intended. Maybe my fat content is ideal for sticking a thin needle in me and delivering the goods. Maybe running 30-50 ...