D-Blog Week - Mantras

It's the 5th Annual Diabetes Blog Week! Thanks to Karen over at Bitter Sweet Diabetes for the topics and agenda for the week. Head over there and see all the other postings from great diabetes bloggers from all walks of life. Go. Now. I'll wait.

Yesterday I wrote about how diabetes can bring me down. Today's post was supposed to center on what gets me through a hard day.

Day #4

Mantras

All will be well / She's still a kid / Sure we can / Always something to learn
and Let her go

All will be well

No matter what happens with diabetes, I know one thing, it will all be well. It will all be what it is supposed to be. Do I mean accept the possibility that things will not end well? Yes, I suppose I mean that too. The high BG, it will all be well in time. The low BG, it will all be well in time. If we end up in the hospital, the people there will help us get better and it will all be well. If we screw up, in the end, we will make it well. It is more about my soul's acceptance of dealing with the 'now' than it is of accepting fate. 

She's still a kid

She wants to play with her friends, and say yes when someone asks her to sleepover on a whim. She wants to go to the mall alone with her friend, while mom waits down in the food court. She just wants to be an 11 year old girl. If I remember this about her, that she is just a child trying to move through her life, the diabetes can take a backseat. I try to think of her childhood first. What do I want her to remember about this childhood and this life? That she was loved and had a grand time, doing what she liked to do. 

Sure we can

Camp with her 5th grade class to an outdoor school, with cabins and no indoor plumbing? Sure we can. Swim all day in the ocean and then want to go back for more at night? Sure we can. Eat five pancakes for breakfast cause they look sooooo good in the restaurant. Sure we can, we will SWAG the heck out of that. If I keep my mantra to how she CAN do it, instead of creating elaborate, complex and bewildering plans, I have taught my child how to be a person with diabetes who figures out how they can do what they want to do in life. I want her to say 'Sure I can' as a PWD without nary a backward glance.

Always something to learn

If there is something I know about diabetes that I can impart to others, it would be, learn all that you can, and when you think you have learned it all, sit down, grab a book that you haven't read about diabetes before, and start reading. I have learned so much from people like Gary Scheiner, and others with Type 1. They have SO much to teach others about living a full life. About how to correctly bolus for foods. About adjusting basals. About carb counting. And I have tried in these past five plus years to learn as much as I can, as fast as I can. I learn so I can teach Grace, so she will know how to care for herself. Learn it, D-Mamas and D-Papas, so you can teach your kids.

Let her go

(Don't you dare start singing the Frozen song. Stop it. Right now.) She's 11, but it started at about age 9. I have to let her go. I have to let her go and do and care for herself without being tethered to me. Thus the learning (see above). When she knows how to do what she needs to do, she doesn't need me. And I can let her go. 

I don't need to know every BG at lunch time when she is at school. She cares for herself in school. I routinely check that she is doing it, as it's an expectation in our house that she care for herself. And she does. And we hug and we laugh and we celebrate. I don't need a phone call every day from the school nurse, or to help her figure out the pizza dose. She lets me know later - 'Mom, I dosed 35g for that slice of pizza as it was big, and I did a 80/20 split for 3 hours.' I smile, cause that's what I would have done too.

This is how I know to stop controlling. I think 'Can she do it?' If the answer is yes to that question, then my response is 'Then let her go.' Release. She can do this. I have faith. And you can too.