| GoP--
WELCOME! (lol--bet you didn't want to be welcomed to such a club!) Diabetes is not a death sentence, but it IS a LIFE sentence. I mean that it may not kill you, but you will have to deal with it as long as you do live. And it IS serious. That much said, you CAN deal successfully with diabetes for many many years without its impacting negitively on your life or your health. I've been diabetic for 40 years, so I've got a few years under my belt from which I speak. Diet is extremely important. Weight control is extremely important. Exercise is extremely important. Testing and taking your meds is extremely important. The common denominator of all these aspects of diabetes managemen--diet, weight, exercise, tests and meds--is SELF-CONTROL. Will-power is a muscle that is strengthened by exercise. The more you can exercise self-control, the better you can control diabetes. The thinner you get, the easier diabetes control is--that is an absolute fact. The more you exercise, the easier diabetes control is. The less you eat, the easier diabetes control is. The equation is actually very simple. All you need to do is plug in your own willingness to adjust your life to do the work to control the disease.
AND--that will make you an all-around better person. More powerful, more self-motivated, healthier, stronger, with more endurance and higher self-esteem. You can become a more organized, more self-actualized individual by deciding to be the smartest, healthiest, best-controlled diabetic you can be.
It is a big deal, I would never minimize this disease--it can kill you if you get lazy about it. But if you stay on your toes (all 10 of them, lol!!) and fight and win, you can live the life you want. I've managed college, graduate school, a 30-year career as a Special Ed. teacher, a 33 year marriage, raised 2 children, and in between sneaked off with an Indian guru to an ashram for 2 years to become a meditation instructor--all WITH diabetes. Not to mention hiking glaciers in the Alps, diving coral reefs in the Carribbean, climbing up Mayan pyramids in the Yucatan jungle, trekking down volcanic craters in Hawaii, a side trip to the source of the Jordan River in the occupied Golan Heights in the 1970's, etc... ALL WITH diabetes.
Go for it all--carefully, consciously, wisely.
Michael
T1 since 1965  | 
