Fear Factor

For the most part I think I'm handling my diabetes diagnosis pretty well, but there are moments when I fear that the worst will happen to me: that I'll go blind, that I'll lose a leg, that I'll have a heart attack. At the moment, my blood sugar is under control, but I feel like I'm balancing a tower of stacked blocks: make one wrong move and everything will come tumbling down.

This is why I'm taking extra care to improve my health. I'm eating better, I'm losing weight, I'm exercising and I'm taking all of my meds and insulin on schedule. Still, I know that diabetes isn't completely under my control. Since I'm 37 and fairly young, I worry about what kind of life I will lead when I'm 50 -- or even if I'll make it to that age. To say that this is a life or death situation isn't an exaggeration; knowing that everything depends on my choices EVERY DAY is a bit daunting.

In a weird way, though, my diabetes could be what ultimately turns my life around. I've been battling my weight for about 18 years now and haven't been able to get down to a healthy size. Now I've had the fear of going blind knocked into me and it's suddenly made cookies look very unappealing!

I hope that I can continue to improve my health and my life. I've had a good month, but I was only diagnosed a few weeks ago. I have to keep this up for the next month and the one after that, and then for the next year, and then the rest of my life. There's no question that I'm getting physically stronger, but I need my mental strength to get me through this for the longhaul.