Day 6 & 7: A Snapshot & a Dream

This is truly the only picture that I have of me with my pump.  It is taken in the middle of the 1/2 marathon last year.  I used my iPhone to take a shot of my bib, "13015" and you can see my pump sticking out of my little pouch I purchased specifically for the day of the run.  It is an amazing picture to me because it shows me that I can do anything - even run a 1/2 marathon with little training.  I don't have to be some sort of non-diabetic athlete.  I have to just put my mind to it, work hard (some training was required) make sure I am prepared (enough insulin in the pump, a sensor active and working, and Gatorade along the route) and I am set.  

I typically work hard to hide my pump.  Not extremely hard.  I don't mind if I have to clip it to the back of my pants when do not have pockets for a work outfit, I do not mind clipping it to the top of the back of my dress at a wedding and I do not mind "whipping it out in public".  But I do cringle a little when I see it hanging out of a pocket in a picture, or when someone was taking a picture of something and they happen to capture my back (where my pump is usually "hidden").  It catches me offguard.  It makes me ask the question, "When others see that thing hanging around me, what to they think of it?"  I don't really care as much anymore to be perfectly honest.  I can see from the different blogs out here that it's normal to be diabetic - we all are.  And it helps me be a little proud too.  "Look at me world!  I am bigger than this disease.  I am living with it day by day - and I am living well!"

I can't say that I have ever actually dreamed of a cure for diabetes - not in the nigthtime close my eyes and dream a vivid dream sense.  I have thought of it some and I use it as a joke some times.  Someone will ask something they think is innocent (and I guess it is) like "Can you ever go without your pump for even a day?" and I usually answer "Yes, I can.  When they find a cure."  Or some thing along those lines.  

I have a little fear to be honest.  I may have bought into a tiny conspiracy theory.  I remember I read somewhere or someone once told me that even if a cure was reached, the pharmaceutical companies would not allow the cure to be used or found out since that would means millions and millions of dollars of lost revenue for all these companies that keep us alive everyday.  I'm sure you've all heard something like this before.  Or that a lot of the research that is being done out there is being filtered or funded by the pharma. companies - the very people that would be on the street if a vaccine or pill was found that would cure us of this "dirty ol' disease".  Anyone hear anything like this?  

So for now I prepare myself to live my life - with or without diabetes.  I expect it to be with me for the rest of my days.  And I am fine with it, to some extent.

I understand that my life is "but a vapor".  I know that heaven awaits me and God will welcome me home one day and tell me "You've run a good race, Rebeca.  Good job!"  I know this life is a speck, shoved between two eternities.  This is the dream that I will one day wake up from.  I'm not saying what we have here isn't real but rather that it's not lasting.  The bible says  "No eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind has conceive what God has prepared for those who love him".  So I know one day my pump will be gone and I will sit down at a big feast with unimaginable foods that have no carbs and I won't have to worry about any of that anyhow.  It sounds wishy-washy as I say it out loud - like a fairy tale.  But I believe it.  I can trust God at his word since he has showed me over and over again in my life that He is there for us, that he loves us and even this disease is somehow working at shaping me to be a better person day by day. To live a life more and more pleasing to God.  To respond to the daily grime of diabetes with hope and with patience and grace. 

If that day ever comes when there will be a cure here on Earth for Type 1 Diabetes - I will be all over it.  But until then... I will wait, I will test and I will bolus.