My husband has Diabetes. Type 1 Diabetes, to be more specific, which means he relies on injections of insulin to live. Thanks to modern technology, he doesn’t have to inject himself with a syringe all day though – he uses a pump, which is constantly attached to him, and pumps insulin into him via this little thing called an infusion set. The whole thing looks like this:
This tiny device keeps my husband alive.
It’s pretty cool.
What’s not cool is that he has Type 1 Diabetes in the first place, and has to live the rest of his life with the pump. I don’t claim to understand how it makes him feel, physically or mentally. I will never be able to understand that. I can say that he’s tough – he acts like it’s no big deal, but really, it’s a very big deal.
Without insulin, he will die. If this fact worries him, he never lets it show, at least to me. This fact does worry me. All. The. Time. I try not to let him see that either, and I don’t want to make this about me. But as the wife of someone with a serious illness, I am also affected, but in a completely different way.
It’s hard, because I often feel like I have no one to talk to about it. It’s not something I go around asking people: “Hey, so does your husband have an illness that needs to be constantly monitored and is sometimes unpredictable and could send him into a coma or possibly even death? Mine too! Let’s be friends!” It doesn’t work that way.
And for the record, he can and does eat the desserts I bake. He just has to adjust his insulin intake for it. Dessert is not a diabetic’s enemy.
Yes he ate one of these. And liked it.
I don’t worry about sharing dessert with him. I don’t worry about eating anything with him. He does an amazing job keeping his diabetes under control. If anything, it gives his geeky nature a chance to really shine.
I worry about coming home and finding him unconscious (or worse). I worry when he doesn’t text me back right away, that maybe he’s passed out on the ground, or in his car in a ditch. I worry when he’s sleeping that he might not wake up. Sometimes I poke him to make sure he’s still conscious (and he wonders why he never sleeps very well). I am, by nature, a worrier. I am also, by nature, a person who is very in tune with other people. I notice every slight change in his looks, his mood, his face, his voice, his eyes…everything. I ask him if he’s ok a lot. I’ve driven home from work at like 80 miles an hour because he didn’t respond to a text and I needed to make sure he was fine.
Maybe someday I’ll stop worrying about him so much. Maybe not. Either way, his disease is a part of my life now, too. Maybe my worrying is just another reason why we were meant to be together. Although I wish he didn’t have to deal with having Diabetes, I don’t wish anything was different. I love him for who he is, and how he handles what life has dealt him with courage and grace. I just hope that I can do the same, and be the woman and wife he needs me to be, worrier and all.
Photo by The More We See.
Small Indulgences 