Back when I was regularly writing at Six Until Me, I connected with a woman named Mary. She had been living with type 1 diabetes for over seventy-five years. She allowed me to ask seven decades worth of questions over the course of our 90 minutes phone call.
“How did you check your blood sugar in 1942, when you were diagnosed?” I asked.
“The only thing we had was urine testing. The 10 drops of urine and a tablespoon of something that looked like blue mouthwash and you’d put it in a test tube and hold the test tube over a candle until it boiled, and then you could tell by the color what your blood sugar was. Blue was sugar-free urine, green was some sugar, and orange was a lot of sugar.”
“Have you ever used a continuous glucose monitor?”
“I tried a monitor for a short while, but when it beeped, it scared my dog Mozart, so I decided against it.” (Sidenote: If that’s not the most wholesome reason not to implement a CGM, I don’t know what is.) She continued on: “I have absolutely no sadness about what we didn’t have, and no worries about it. If it works well for people nowadays, I’m very happy for them. I’m very comfortable with what I’ve used. I feel very thankful. I’ve had a very blessed life.”
“What would you want to tell someone who has been diagnosed with diabetes recently?” I asked her.
"I’d want them to know that we can live very well. Very successfully. It's just a matter of accepting what we need to do in order to live victoriously with it," she said.
Victoriously. I’ve heard so many parts of speech set adjacent to diabetes. Thrive with diabetes. Live well with diabetes. Survive with diabetes. Struggle with diabetes. Defeat diabetes. Despite diabetes.
I’d never heard “victoriously” included as an adverb of choice.
It is a delicious word to set at the same table as diabetes. Regal, chin jutted out in defiance, wiping its mouth on its sleeve instead of using the napkin. Feral and dignified, like a frosted mini wheat. I love the idea of it — victoriously.
Over the weekend, I was at the JDRF Type One Nation event in Boston, and there were hundreds of people in attendance. Some familiar faces — hi, Bernard! — had been living with diabetes for over fifty, sixty, seventy years. Others in the crowd were diagnosed within the last year. I thought of my conversation with Mary as I was on stage, remembering her words. Stacey Simms and I were asked to co-present for the opening keynote, and being part of that presentation team reminded me that diabetes is very much a team sport for me.
Yes, even if you’re fiercely independent and stubborn, like some people who might be writing this essay. (cough)
I believe firmly in the “we” of diabetes, even though I fought against the idea as a kid. Whenever my parents said “we” when it came to diabetes, I was pissed. They weren’t pricking their finger. They weren’t taking an insulin injection. They weren’t living with this disease, day in and day out.
… and honestly, even writing that makes me feel squirrelish.
My mom wasn’t checking her own blood sugar, but she was deeply invested in the results of mine. My parents weren’t actively injecting insulin, but they were working jobs to provide medical insurance to afford the drug. They weren’t sucking desperately at the straw in a juice box but damn it, they had to watch their kid do that in the middle of the night, and now with children of my own, I cannot imagine what that must have felt like, watching diabetes from the outside but feeling it so much on their own insides.
It took some growing up to realize it, but my diabetes is very much a “we” thing.
The team that lives with my diabetes now includes my husband and our kids — the cats are patently useless — with peripheral players like friends and extended family part of that “we.” And while they don’t wear CGMs or take insulin, they’re living with diabetes in a way that I can’t fully understand.
I hope we all live victoriously with diabetes. Continue to live victoriously? I’m not sure what tense is in play, but I’m aiming for now and always. As the years continue to accumulate, the combined effort of my own work and the support of my personal team, as well as my medical team, as well as the shit I’m lucky to have access to continues to help me hook the word “victoriously” to life.
I reached out to Mary recently, and learned that she had passed away, “old age” cited as cause. But I bet it was victorious old age. Absolutely victorious.
I have always thought that the reason I love blue ..is because I knew that I (and Mary 🫂) were okay with our diabetes (I was diagnosed later than Mary in 1967). Get this, my first car in the 80's .. a Honda Civic .. guess what colour it was? It's only dawning on me now .. the same as that blue with the Clintest 🤔 plo.. plop fizz fizz test. And as we all know now .. within our time in the DOC .. blue 💙 is the cat's meow. Thanks for bringing up memories my brain has forgotten over the years 💋
Thank you💕I feel seen🥹