Twenty-one Million People...Plus?

Last weekend, I set up a table at the local Farmers' Market. There were booths with vegetables and plants, of course. And booths with crafts of all kinds and tasty morsels to be eaten or taken home. And, in the middle of it all, I stood behind a table with my stack of books and a big sign to draw attention. It worked. I was pretty much busy from 8 a.m. to noon and I dragged home tired, exhausted from the heat, and with a head full of thoughts.

I sold one paperback and gave out a bunch of flyers so that folks could go home to download the Kindle edition of Your Life Isn't Over ~ It May Have Just Begun! for free. But what really wore me out was the conversations. There were only a couple of people who told me they've been diagnosed "pre-diabetic." And there was one, I think, who said she was managing her disease. But the bulk of those I spoke with were folks who stopped to talk about their loved ones who have diabetes and are making no attempt to control it.

They were desperate. One after another, they poured out their frustrations about their mom or their uncle or their brother-in-law with all the gory details, shaking their heads and looking into my face, searching for some kind of answer as to what they could do.

One told me how she watched her father dying by inches for years before he finally succumbed to the complications of the disease he refused to manage. Another told me he used to try to say something to his afflicted relative, but had just quit trying because it seemed to be no use, so he just watches her eat one cupcake after another and thinks about not going over there any more. It was painful to hear their sad stories and listen to them imagining how to get their sister or their friend or their co-worker to read the book or even pick it up. And I had no stash of pixie dust, no tidy answers for their family dilemma.

It was an aspect of the disease I hadn't considered much. When I was diagnosed, I didn't tell my daughter or my birth family for months. I didn't want to "worry" them. I was ashamed for some reason, as if I had somehow failed to protect myself and wound up with an embarrassing condition. I felt as if telling them would make it more terrifyingly real. Further, I feared it would be like announcing I was dying. And I dreaded the possibility that I might wind up having to comfort them when I was on the edge of losing my grip myself.

So by the time they heard it (my daughter after a few months, my birth family a year later), I had found my feet and could put a genuinely brave face on it all. I'm not suggesting that was the best way to handle it, but it was the best I could do.

Still, I was thinking more about my feelings than theirs at that point. And apparently, that's what most people with diabetes do, especially those who don't manage it. They choose to play fast and lose with their body and its struggle. They claim it's their right to manage or not manage their condition, that it's their life, after all, and their decision how to live it.

But that's not all they're doing. They're putting their whole family, all their friends, and anybody else that cares about them at all on a roller coaster to Hell. Instead of deciding to spend the rest of their days (which might be a lot, if they do it right) enjoying themselves with their their loved ones, thriving on the beauty and joy that surrounds them, and finding new reasons to laugh and new ways to show love, they just lie down and make their loved ones drag them around behind them like a wounded elephant until they finally die.

I didn't have an easy answer for all those discouraged family and friends who stopped by my table looking for any kind of input, anything new to try. But I do know one thing: there's twenty-one million Americans already diagnosed with diabetes and another 4500 diagnosed every day, which means there's many times that being affected by the disease in this country alone. With all the medical technology and information and proven techniques and this new book I've written, there is no reason to give up, to make excuses, to pretend it doesn't matter, or to throw ourselves under the bus. Your life isn't over ~ it may have just begun!