perspective

I sit at our long wood dining table drinking steaming coffee from my favorite pink-with-flowers mug. It’s a frigid January morning, but I am energized by the natural light that fills our home. A health insurance website is open on my laptop; I search to find Micah’s information–the coverage on his CGM and insulin pump–but to no avail. So, I call the customer service number, then spend ten minutes waiting for someone to help me. I could be sitting here awhile as I also need to order replacements for a faulty CGM sensor and a failed insulin pod. 

Granted, there are a million things I’d rather be doing than sitting here talking to insurance reps and pharmacy techs. Tedious, yes, but it must be done. Almost fourteen years of diabetes care has taught me that the job involves so much more than administering insulin and monitoring blood sugar.

Recently I finished reading the book, Breakthrough: Elizabeth Hughes, the Discovery of Insulin, and the Making of a Medical Miracle. I probably wouldn’t have given this title a second glance before Micah came into our lives. But now that t1d has become part of our family’s DNA (so to speak), I was intrigued.

I’ve known for a long time that it’s only been about 100 years since insulin was developed. But I didn’t know all the details surrounding the event, the stuff that make this book so fascinating. In reading it, I learned why it had taken so long to discover insulin (diabetes had been around for many centuries). I learned about the physicians and researchers involved in its amazingly short two-year development period, what their character traits and personalities were like, and how they worked together (often not well due to the competitive nature of some) to get the job done. The authors are wonderfully thorough in describing these men and what was going on in their lives and in their minds as this miracle drug was coming to fruition.

Sadly, I also learned about the suffering of the children and adults with t1d, how a starvation diet was the only treatment that offered just a few more months to their very short (two years from diagnosis) life span. Of course, the book largely revolves around Elizabeth Hughes and her famous (at the time) father, Charles Evans Hughes. I was amazed at her positive attitude as she endured several years with t1d before becoming one of the first people to receive insulin. She remained secretive about her medical condition for the rest of her life, the reason explained in the final pages.

Now, as I wait somewhat impatiently for someone to answer my questions, I wonder what these long-ago heroes would think as they observe me going about my tasks. Would they be amazed at the way I can just punch in some information or place a call to order diabetes supplies? Would they feel immense pride as they realize that equipment like insulin pumps and CGMs would never have existed without their perseverance? Would they be irritated as they hear me grumble a little bit here and there knowing how much better my son has it than the poor souls who had to endure the torturous existence of having t1d before 1922?

I say a silent prayer of thanks, and hope God allows them to know how grateful I am.

It pays to get a good dose of perspective from time to time.