perspective – Hugging the Cactus

One thing that I love about Hugging the Cactus is that it encourages me to check out other diabetes bloggers’ content. It may be more difficult to come by these days, as most diabetes content on the Internet can be found on Instagram and TikTok, but I’ll always enjoy the written word format (and can definitely appreciate the time and energy put into a single blog post).

Plus, I’m always struck by how other diabetes bloggers are able to articulate some of the complex emotions around diabetes, in ways that I’ve struggled to do but certainly have been able to relate to.

Take, for example, Renza’s recent post about her personal battle with diabetes.

I won’t do it justice – you should really read the full post here – but in sum, Renza talks about how words that invoke battle are used widely across the diabetes community (think “warrior”, “fighter”, “army”, “challenger”, etc.). We are asked – no, demanded – to wage a war against diabetes in rhetoric all over the place, meaning that we must always fight to maintain “ideal” blood sugars, A1c, time in range, and all the other numbers associated with diabetes. But as Renza puts it, no matter what the metrics may be, diabetes remains. There’s no way to defeat it, which makes militarized language around the matter that much more infuriating and paradoxical. What a massive burden to place on the shoulders of a person living with diabetes, to ask them to fight with all their might against an enemy that can’t literally be defeated…but one that perhaps is open to a resolution of sorts.

To quote directly from Renza’s post, because she said it best:

“To be at war with diabetes is to be at war with myself. I can’t divorce myself from my diabetes – it is me and I am it. We are a tag team, a group package, a two-for-one deal. I don’t get a say in that, and no one else does either, no matter how much they implore me to fight.

It’s not a battle with diabetes that I need. In fact, it’s the complete opposite. It’s finding peace. That’s what I want to work towards – a peaceful existence that doesn’t add more burden.”
Renza Scibilia

I had never thought about it that way before, but as I continued to read Renza’s post, I marveled more and more over how she was able to put into words a feeling that has gnawed at me for many years now about trying to win a never-ending war against diabetes. Why should I be so focused on winning, when it’s more so about learning to live in a peaceful coexistence with a condition that I know is here to stay (until we get that cure in 5 years, wink wink)? Why just accept that I am fighting an unrelenting fight, when in reality it will take much less of my valuable time and energy to seek harmony with diabetes?

Thank you to Renza for such an honest, insightful, and surprisingly optimistic post that challenges conventional thinking about the “fight” against diabetes.

You stir suddenly from a dreamless sleep, knowing that something must’ve disturbed your slumber but not quite sure what it may have been.

This blog post was inspired by a recent middle-of-the-night low that went…well, exactly as I wrote it here. I wrote in the second-person perspective so you might be able to imagine what it’s like, if it’s something you’ve never experienced before.

Reflexively, you reach over to where your phone is perched on your nightstand. You check your notifications and confirm what you’d been hoping wouldn’t be a problem tonight: Your blood sugar is low and you must do something to fix it.

You unroll a couple of Smarties from their package, almost surprised at how dexterously you do so. After all, it’s an odd skill to have honed over the course of your life to be really good at opening up packages of the food just moments after you were sleeping soundly, but you’re accustomed to it. You chew up the Smarties as quickly as you can, grimacing slightly as their sweet-sour taste mingles with traces of toothpaste from when you brushed your teeth before bed. You sink back against your pile of pillows, sighing, as you wait for your blood sugar to come back up.

You wait. You wait some more. You scroll mindlessly through various apps on your phone. You’re not feeling better. You wonder to yourself, how much more do I have to do to fix this? You wish you weren’t alone right now. Low blood sugars are scary to deal with on your own, especially when they sneak up like this in the middle of the night.

Your mind begins to spiral as those nasty “what ifs” enter your thoughts. What if you plummet further? What if you lose a lot of sleep over this one pesky low? What if you don’t recover from this low and…?

Just as you begin to think of the most unpleasant scenario, you realize that your shakiness has subsided. The sweat on your skin has dried and your vision seems to be less foggy – it’s hard to tell in the dark, but not wanting to turn on anymore lights, you settle back into bed more comfortably and close your eyes.

You hope you can go back to sleep quickly. You hope that you don’t have to wake up again for the rest of the night for any blood sugar-related issues. You hope that you aren’t exhausted because of this one tomorrow.

You hope that tomorrow night is different, but with diabetes, you never know.