Can anyone build me a pancreas?

Sometimes you wake up and feel like you don’t want to do this anymore. You want to get off the train, hand in your name tag that says “diabetic”, unhook the pump, throw the monitor in the bin and walk away. Today is one of those for me. I spent half the night feeling sick and trying to meditate my brain into thinking I did not feel sick and it was nothing. This leads to bad dreams. And then when I thought 5.30 am was probably an acceptable time to get up and eat (coz this can help my tummy sometimes) I find that my BGL is 15 mmol….and food is not going to work right now.

A pump site change later, a bolus and a half hour wait and I decide to dive in anyway with some toast. Now I await the outcome which I know will probably go like this

1. I will be higher after eating

2. by the time I hit the gym I will be on the way down

3.I will hypo at the gym

4. I will eat large amounts of lollies

5. I will rebound high after the gym

6. By bed time I will be hypo

My husband on the other hand gets up, makes a bowl of cereal (which is just a nightmare for me anyway as my body does not deal well with the GI of most cereals) and free and easy, sits and eats. He goes to work. He eats, he drinks, he gets on with his day. He decides to go for a ride on his bike. He does not have any consequences of these things. He just does them…..

It is never so stark how different and how difficult my life can be than at these moments. The ones where I notice that I actually am different. That despite my 34 years of running at a million miles an hour, producing three stunning children, working my butt off to achieve, achieve, achieve- there is actually a part of me that is broken. A pretty important part. And. It. Sucks.

I have a very positive and mindful approach to life. I love life. I do not feel bothered by diabetes in the main, despite its constant presence. It is probably the thing I spend most of my time on. Not that I notice a lot of the time. I just do it (Maybe the Nike founder had diabetes?)

Given I also work in diabetes I guess my life IS diabetes. But a lot of the time it is about other people’s diabetes. I am cool with that. It rocks in fact and it gives me a passion in my belly and a joy when I speak to people who are struggling and see them blossom. Life is good.

But, these days, the ones where things are shitty? Then I just wish I could walk down the street into my local hardware store and order a pancreas. Maybe that is a new reality show – “build me a pancreas”? Do you think it would work? A team of people get to renovate a bunch of people whose pancreas does not work and there are weekly challenges and the best pancreas, the prettiest most stylish one wins?

Hmm maybe not. But if anyone has any good ideas about how we could build a new pancreas or even just the lovely islet cell part of one – today is a day I would really appreciate that.

Helen