Diabetes Means Always Having to Say You're Sorry

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By Russell Turner

Published:
1-April-2006

 I remember back in the 70's there was a cheesy movie called Love Story. It starred Ryan O'Neal and Allie McGraw. It was awful. Among all of this awfulness was the movie's awful tagline, "Love means never having to say you're sorry". As my daughter gets older, smarter, and better able to engage me verbally, I often find our arguments escalating. In paying attention to the causes of these escalations I have come to realize usually we are not mad at each other. We are mad at the situation, usually directly related to and caused by her diabetes.

An on-going discussion we have is about food. Kari is a grazer. In a healthy child grazing is great. It's a good habit to take into adulthood. It helps keep your weight in check and that heads off a whole laundry list of health issues as you get older. With a diabetic it's just the opposite. Grazing makes the food you eat next to impossible to cover with insulin because you never eat a whole serving of anything, so you never know quite where you are carbohydrate-wise. This is a deadly habit to take into adulthood. Kari and I have had some loud, angry conversations about this habit. As her father I'm looking forward 30 years to neuropathy, kidney failure and blindness. As my daughter she's looking forward 30 minutes to homework, TV, and talking on the phone to her friends.

This grazing behavior scares me. My first reaction is loud angry and accusing. Her reaction to me is loud angry and tearful. It's not until some tiny amount of maturity on my end or, more and more often lately, a staggering amount of maturity on her end that we stop banging heads and begin to work together. We both want the same thing. Fighting about it is stupid. Once that realization washes over us the "I'm sorrys" begin, and begin in earnest.

A phenomenon that has kept psychologists in business for years is our tendency to really go after those to whom we are closest. We hurt the feelings of the people we love far more often than we do with strangers or acquaintances. When a diabetes caused argument erupts in our house, it often doesn't only involve my daughter and me. It very often escalates to include her sister. Now three people who should be working together to keep life normal and make diabetes conform to our life style are caught up in a full scale donnybrook caused by the very enemy we should all be aligned against. Wait until that realization hits somebody. Then, let the I'm sorrys begin.

Like many type 1 kids my daughter keeps a daily log of her blood glucose numbers. In our house we are all newly rededicated to keeping this log accurate and up to date. If I ask to see the log and it's behind a day or two invariably my daughter will say "I'm sorry daddy". This oversight is no big deal because either one of us can quickly bring the log up to date. But it breaks my heart a little that she feels she needs to apologize. Because of diabetes we have all started saying I'm sorry for things that no one really needs to apologize for. We do this because diabetes has caused us on occasion to act in a way that very much calls for an apology.

Type 1 diabetes is an insidious disease. It has a way of working its way into your life and causing disruptions to your family that have nothing at all to do with your child's pancreas not producing insulin. Because of this we as parents need to remain ever vigilant and aware of not only what is going on in our homes but also why. I think part of my problem with that dumb movie was that, even as a teenager, I knew that love meant always having to say you're sorry.