Wednesday, October 16, 2013

It runs in the family, they say..

"So are there any other diabetics in your family?", she asked. In fact, there are. Well, some are no longer here. There was my grandmother on my mother's side. She passed away a long time ago, probably because of T2 related complications. There's my mom's sister and brother, who both have diabetes, as in T2 and prediabetes. On the other side of the family, there was my great grandfather, who was a T2 diabetic as well as my grandfather and some even say my grandmother was a T2 as well, but I'm not sure about that. There's my father's sister, who has been shooting up insulin for 14 years now and there's another sister who has to "pay attention" to what she eats, if you know what I mean. And then there's the family dog... Her name was Charlotte. Or Bollie. She had different names. She was quite old when she got diagnosed with diabetes. Her knees showed infected wounds and her eyes had known better days... I knew nothing about diabetes in those days. But I could tell the dog was suffering and hurting. She must have been so thirsty and tired and she probably urinated quite a bit. I can't remember, but I do remember the sadness in her eyes.

"So did the dog get treated for her diabetes?", the nurse asked.. I got quite emotional over that question. That's how I feel when it comes to diabetes. We hold on to one another because of the mutual bond diabetes brought us. Even pets with diabetes are welcome in the group. Because we know what it feels like. Because we can relate to each other without words. My vet told us, our sighthounds could never get diabetes. It's not possible in that breed. Would that work for people too? Would there be some race that will never get diabetes?

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