Finding a Cure

Hey y'all!  Hope everyone's having a great Diabetes Awareness Month!  Mine's going pretty well--although it does serve as a constant reminder that the vast majority of the world only knows/cares about Type 2. (Did anyone else see that NewSkokie article?  Made me so angry.  Sigh.)

Anyway--today's post is about something that, strangely enough, doesn't occupy as much of my thoughts as it did when I was younger, but is always in the back of my mind and the minds of most PWD.  It's gonna be a bit hard to write because of the emotional rollercoaster I'm gonna have to go on--but, of course, I have to share my journey with y'all.  Here goes.

When I was first diagnosed, there was a lot of talk about how my condition would affect me long-term.  Could I play sports?  Could I go to college?  Could I live on my own?  My parents had so many questions about my future, and I, sitting and listening to my new endo talking about complications and life expectancy, was confused.  Finally, I piped up with my little 7-year-old voice, still slightly raw from the days I'd spent screaming and crying in the hospital.  "None of that matters, though, does it?  There's gonna be a cure by then."

I don't know if my parents genuinely believed that the search for a cure was really in its final stages, or if they just said that to pacify me and keep me from completely breaking down in the aftermath of my diagnosis.  But whatever the reason, I spent the first several years after becoming a PWD thinking that "the cure" could arrive at any moment.  I distinctly remember doing my last insulin dose of the night and saying to my mom, "Maybe that'll be my last shot ever!  Maybe when I wake up, there'll be a cure!"

I didn't understand the look in her eyes when I said that.  Now I do.  I know that after I fell asleep that night, she stayed awake and cried, wondering how she was going to break the news to me: that while research for a cure was promising, there was no chance of finding something in the near future.

As it turns out, she didn't end up telling me.  Honestly, I'm not sure how I figured it out.  Part of it honestly came with the territory: as hard as you try to be positive with a condition like this, you can only endure it for so long before you start to lose that sense of hope and optimism.  Part of it, too, came from getting older, realizing that the stuff I dreamed of as a kid was unrealistic at best.  "The cure" died with Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy, with the same innocence that got me through my traumatic diagnosis.

Here's what I know now: the idea of "finding a cure" is one that I gave up on long ago.  There's tons of promising research for T1D advancements, but none of it will be publicly available before 2025 or so, and some of it will probably take much longer than that.  Lots of the current research involves artificial pancreas systems, better pumps/cgms, and other tech that, while it makes our lives much easier, isn't really a "cure".

Do I think there will be a real, genuine cure someday?  Yes.  I had the opportunity to meet Dr Aaron Kowalski (President of JDRF) this summer, and one thing that stood out to me during our conversation was when he said, "I think when the cure comes, it'll actually be cures plural, as in more than one.  There isn't a one-size-fits-all answer to this condition.  We're working on multiple potential cures because we want people to have options, to find one that works best for them."

My takeaway from that exchange?  I'm not gonna have this condition forever.  There is gonna be, someday, a way for me to be free of Type 1.  But I've got a while before that day comes, and I'm slowly learning that while I can hold on to a little bit of hope, I can't waste my life waiting for someone to lift this burden.  I'm learning that life with T1D is still life, and like it or not, life requires living.  So that's what I'm doing.

I'm living my life for that 7-year-old girl, so tiny and scared in her hospital bed.  I'm living my life for every one of the tears and tantrums that followed.  I'm living my life for my parents, and their fear that I would never be what they wanted me to be.  I'm living my life for all the PWD who came before me, whose lives were so much harder than mine, and for all the ones who will come after, who will hold on to that naive hope as long as they can.  I'm living my life for my friends for whom the cure will come too late, whose condition took them too soon, through no fault of their own.  And yeah, I'm living my life for me: for the mountains I've climbed and the ones still in the distance.