My Child Has Diabetes: E-book for parents of children with Juvenile Diabetes

My girls and I just got a new SUV. It isn't really all that new, just new to us. Our old car was a 98 model with 130,000 miles on it. We got a 99 model with 60,000 miles. We really just traded in mileage. It's our first 4-wheel drive vehicle. We couldn't be happier if it was brand new! It sits "up high" and has a bouncy truck ride. We look like 3 brain cells holding hands as we ride around town with these big goofy grins on our faces.

We had had it for about a day when I got the bright idea, "It's got 4-wheel drive! Let's go 4-wheeling! The girls and I jumped in the truck, took off down the road, and cut in through the bushes at the power lines not too far from where we live. It was exciting. I put it in 4-wheel high and we were 4-wheeling!

We bounced along for awhile with the windows down and the music blasting, pulling our arms in quickly when the bushes closed around us too tightly but mostly enjoying being tossed around and marveling at how easily this vehicle handled the terrain. Up ahead I could see some mud.

We all looked at each other, cool. mud! I sped up a little and we hit that mud with a splash. Pow, up over the hood comes this wall of gook. Cool. gook! We churn along for about 40 more feet and the tires start to spin. Uh Oh, I then broke the cardinal mud rule. I stopped and down shifted into 4-wheel low. We just sat there and spun, throwing up mud from all 4 tires, splattering the entire truck.

I tried rocking the truck back and forth. I got nowhere. Kari asks "are we stuck daddy"? I pretend I didn't hear her. Back and forth we go again rocking to no avail. This time Kristin feels it's her turn for an opinion. "Daddy, we're stuck, what are we going to do"? Not quite ready to answer, I put the truck in park and jumped out. only to sink to my shins in mud. I pulled one foot out and quickly reached into the hole left by my foot before it closed to retrieve my shoe.

Man, are we ever stuck. I go back to the truck, stick my head in the window and say "girls we're stuck" There's some quick discussion about what we should do. The girls decide to pray. I decide to get some stuff to put under the wheels to see if we can gain some traction.

After a few minutes of each of us doing our thing, I jump back into the truck, give my girls a confident smile, and fire that mother up. I put it in frontwards, drive up a little on the branches and boughs that I had stuffed under the tires and begin to spin once again. I throw the shift into reverse, back quickly off of the branches and stuff back onto the mud and lo and behold we don't sink but continue to travel backwards. I backed right through about 40 feet of that same mud that had bogged us down before, right back onto dry ground.

Not being one to look a gift horse in the mouth, I kept it in reverse and backed all the way down the trail back out between the bushes where we first came in and out onto the road. I'm not sure whose efforts got us out that day, mine or my girls. I do know what I think though.

This whole episode got me thinking however, that living with diabetes can be a similar adventure. There are times when everything is smooth sailing and all of a sudden you hit a snag. You then begin to muddle through the particular rough spot searching for help from any number of sources. All of a sudden you are back on track. If you're like me, you don't always look back to see what it was that got you out of the mud, you're just glad to be out. Maybe it's time to keep a little better track of how we get out of the mud.

We still go 4-wheelin every chance we get. We christened the truck the "Mud Hen" but we try to stick to drier ground these days.

Keep on truckin'

Rusty

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Rusty's Ramblings April 06

Stuck In the Mud