Hi y'all!
Happy New Year!! It's been quite a semester, quite a year, quite a wild ride in basically every way. Life at Yale is intense in a way that my body and mind were definitely not prepared for when I first stepped foot in New Haven, and it continues to throw curveballs that I never see coming. Existing in this place - just existing! - with a chronic illness is a challenge, to say the least.
At Yale, where displaying anything resembling weakness is next to unthinkable, living with T1 is profoundly isolating at times. A high or low blood sugar can remove us from the task at hand, be it class or rehearsal or socializing, no matter how hard we fight to stay present. When you're already up till 3am studying, sparing an hour to recover from an urgent low is unthinkable. So we learn how to fight through the brain fog, push ourselves past our limits, run across campus when we feel like we can't breathe because being late to class or even cancelling plans with friends just isn't an option. And when we say we're exhausted, we don't just mean academic stress or late-night parties; our very survival is exhausting in a way that we are never really allowed to express.
It was this experience, and the realization that others like me were going through the same thing, that prompted me to start a chapter of what is now known as the Diabetes Link. Formerly known as the College Diabetes Network, this national organization serves as a resource and community for young adults living with T1. Not unlike the Pin Cushions and the other online groups I've created and continue to moderate today, the main purpose of the Link is simply for folks like us to realize we're not alone.
Building a community doesn't happen overnight, so I was shocked by how quickly our little family sprang into being. At a school where everyone is chronically overbooked, even an hour is a lot to ask of people's time, and knowing this all too well, I was more than a little afraid that no one would show up to our first meeting. But the amazing PWDs on our campus proved me wrong (as we so often do!). Our chapter now consists of more than a dozen undergrads and a growing number of grad/professional students. Some of us have been living with T1 for decades; for others, it's been less than a year. We all use different devices and have different philosophies about managing our condition - but all of us share a common struggle that can't be put into words.
Sometimes, our meetings revolve around this singular commonality - we've spent hours just discussing bad blood sugars and good endos and everything in between. But my favourite meetings have been the ones where we just get to exist - go apple picking, get ice cream, bake cookies - without having to explain ourselves, make excuses, or mask our reality. When three of us decided to split the cider donut sundae at the apple orchard, we argued about the carb count and made the sort of jokes that even our closest friends wouldn't understand. My blood sugar shot up to 250, and I wasn't afraid that my friends would judge me or panic the way most non-PWDs would. We just laughed at the incessant beeping of my pump. And god, it felt good.
Despite all the (literal) highs and lows - the hospital trips, sleepless nights, and lost accommodation battles - I'm starting this year off feeling unbelievably grateful. I don't know whether I'd have made it through this semester without our dysfunctional, sleep-deprived, pancreatically challenged little family. Here's to you, here's to us, here's to what's to come, here's to facing it all together.
Love y'all!
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