Tentacles & Shooting Stars

Just over 6 years ago, our family moved into our “fixer upper” home.  My husband & I saw the potential in the home although it needed some TLC.  It was a neat feeling looking beyond the roof that desperately needed to be replaced, the bathrooms that needed well…you name it & seeing that this is “home”.  With hard work, we could see that our older, new home could be “just right” for our family of 5 (well 6 once our furry family member arrived). 

Our oldest son, Matt was 6 years old when we moved into our home in need of TLC, Brian was 2 & I was pregnant with wee Alex.  Looking back, it is difficult to believe that my husband & I did so much work within our new home at break neck speed because Alex was going to be born within months.  We worked together & got things done on our “to do” list.  When I think of it now, the work we did needed to be done until we did not have to do it anymore.  That is common in life.  It is a little like when you have a new baby in the house, sleep decreases & you keep functioning & doing what needs to be done until the baby in later months starts to sleep.  At that point, you don’t have to go on adrenaline anymore.

I look at diabetes the same way.  Each day, I go about the care that diabetes demands like glucose tests throughout the day, bolus & basal calculations, carb calculations, exercise calculations, stress management calculations, correction calculations & on & on.  Most of the time, it is as natural as putting my socks on.  There are times when I am talking away or listening to someone else & bolusing on my insulin pump at the same time because the math calculation for the snack we are sharing is second nature.  You know what, like other folks with type 1 diabetes, I will continue to do what I have to do until I don’t have to anymore.  Once the cure comes, we will all be able to look back & say, hey, the TLC that we gave ourselves while treating diabetes was a lot of work but we did it & now we don’t have to do that anymore.

That’s the part that I love to think forward about…dream about.  Between now & when the cure is here, we don’t want to let go of dreams & we would not dream of letting go of hope.  When I envision the future without diabetes, I picture my family being more carefree & not thinking or talking about diabetes anymore.  It is pretty carefree this picture in my mind.  I find that there are parts of child-likeness that I take with me on life’s journey no matter how many birthdays that I have.  One of the endearing attributes that children have is that they dream & believe that anything is possible.  They get excited & dream huge with no lid on the “hugeness” of possibilities.

When we moved to our home, Matt was 6 as I mentioned before.  He is a cool guy & there are so many things about him that I think are absolutely incredible.  He has a profoundly kind heart, has a hilarious sense of humour, is outgoing, always up for an adventure & has a wonderful creative side.  He tells neat stories & draws very cool pictures.  He is a hoot. When Matt was 6, he had the ultimate dream to wake up with his very own tentacles attached to his back.  That was during his Spiderman era & he wanted to have the “Doc Oc” look.  Each night, I tucked him in & listened to his prayers & then his dreams.  For night after night, month after month, his dream was that he would soon wake up with the tentacles attached to his back.  One night after many times of sharing his tentacle dream, he said to me that he was pretty sure that tomorrow was the day that he was going to wake up with those tentacles because he said that for several nights in a row that there had been a shooting star outside his window.  He said that he had wished upon the shooting star for the tentacles.  Later, we both discovered that the “shooting star” that he kept seeing was in fact the street light across the street.  Once Matt made that discovery, it was okay because he had moved on to another dream. 

If I see a shooting star, I go ahead & make a wish too.  It is fun to do that all together with our sons & of course everyone swears the others to secrecy in case sharing the dream would make it not come true.  Diabetes will not “steal” our family dreams we have decided.  It is not a reason to stop dreaming.  It is not a reason to stop having adventures & having belly laughs & sharing time with others.  For our family, tentacles or no tentacles, diabetes or no diabetes, we carry our child-like wonder, hope, belief and dreams with us each & every day.

My hope for you is that you don’t lose sight of your child-like wonder, hope & dreams.  By the way, if you happen to wake up with tentacles, please be sure to let me know!

Smiles, Saundie :)