I'm so Glad I got Diabetes Said No One Ever

Well, No One?

**Disclaimer here.  The post below is my opinion about my experience with my brief period with diabetes.  It doesn't reflect anyone else's experience.  It is not meant to offend, though things that are not meant to ruffle feathers usually do**

I was sitting around, reflecting on Alison's upcoming 5th birthday when I saw one of those Pinterest fake ecards; it read "I'm so glad I got Diabetes! Said no one ever" and at first I thought, that's true.  But after mulling it over, which I admit, I do far too much of, even when it comes to the mundane, I asked myself, "self, did I regret getting gestational diabetes?"

I had a long hard look back at 2010, at my brief life as a diabetic, which isn't easy, because that is a can of worms that I really don't like to open.

If you had asked me in February of 2010 what the prognosis for the year was, I would have told you I was going out to buy a loto ticket as the odds were in our favor. The hubby and I were doing well in our careers, we had an amazing, beautiful, precocious two year old and were expecting our second child in the fall.  It was all golden.

I was sick from my pregnancy, but that was ok and we moved things along until the summer, that's when the wheels fell off.  Just to summarize; all within the span of a few months  my mother was diagnosed with pancreatic Cancer and later passed away; Alison was diagnosed with T1D, I was diagnosed with gestational diabetes, my blood pressure was too high to work (I ended up spending the last month and a half in and out of the hospital until our youngest daughter Riley was born in October).

But here's the thing.  The diabetes was a stress when Alison had it by herself.  It was scary for me to think of the gravity of it, of the enormous weight.  Testing her (did it hurt?)  Giving her needles (what does a dose of Insulin feel like running through your body?).  But when we were both diabetic and  did everything together for three months, mother and daughter, pricking our fingers together, injecting our insulin at the same time, making a game of who goes first, it wasn't scary.

To this day, Alison says, "Remember when we had diabetes together Mommy?"  

I am so glad that I had diabetes.  If there's a higher power and this was it's to help ease my daughter into life with a disease that is insidious, cruel, scary and unkind, I am OK with that.  In fact, I wish I could have done more and, because of this, I also understand why everyone else agrees with the ecard.