Dreaming a Little Non-D Dream

Today is the final day of Diabetes Blog Week. More than 100 of us D-bloggers have written about a specific topic each day, as coordinated by Karen over at Bitter-Sweet Diabetes. In this last installment of the Diabetes Online Community series, she asks us to: Dream a little dream about Life After A Cure. To wrap up Diabetes Blog Week, let’s pretend a cure has been found. We are all given a tiny little pill to swallow and *poof* our pancreases are back in working order. No side effects. No more insulin resistance. No more diabetes. Tell us what your life is now like. Or take us through your first day celebrating life without the Big D. Blog about how you imagine you would feel if you no longer were a Person With Diabetes.

On the First Day of Life After a Cure...

I'd wake up and have a bowl of Cheerios. Because the Os rule. Then, I'd have a bowl of Fruit Loops - generic Fruity Os style, because once again Os rule. And I wouldn't have to take a shot or pump a bolus. And I'd venture out into the world to start the day's all-important business.

The mission that would take up the remaining time of my day and ultimately my full-time role in life would begin, replacing the injections and D-Management that had previously been my reality: hunting down every doctor who ever told a Type 1 kid or parent that diabetes would be cured within five or even 10 years. I'd take a syringe and stab them in the abdomen, arm, or leg with it - ensuring that I hit a muscle so that the pain seizes them completely and radiates throughout their body. Blood would likely gush, as I've seen so many countless times in my own life. Whatever the amount of years past my 26 years, I'd stab in another limb and muscle, repeating while yelling, "Five Years Gone, A-Hole. Within 10 years, it'll be over!"

Then, I'd find the next doc and repeat the process.... Again and again and again... Until researchers found a cure and ensured that no other little kid would ever have to endure the same kind of lifestyle and subsequent anger. Now, I don't mean for this to deter any D-Dads or Moms and Those Kids/People With Diabetes from hoping for a cure sometime in their lifetimes. That is a valid hope. What gets me is for how so many say, with actual belief, that a cure is "Five Years Away..." Us longtime Type 1s have been hearing that for decades, with the basic qualifier that all is needed is a little more money to get it done.  I'm not a fan of that line of thinking, even though I agree that more funding for a cure is necessary and a big part of our role as advocates.

But, as soon as we get to the Cure Stage, and if I'm around, I'll take what chance I may have to remind those who told me it was just around the corner. When it really wasn't. Yes, I'm bitter. Can't you tell? But, in the end, at least I'd be cured.

Actually, if there really was a cure, I'd immediately cancel my health insurance for no more worries would be had on the chronic condition front and pre-existing conditions wouldn't be a worry. I'd use whatever money previously paid in monthly premiums and instead stock that up for a couple months, as well as all the cash saved in what had been spent on pump supplies, insulin, blood test strips, Endo visits, lab tests, etc.... Then I'd throw a HUGE bash and invite all of us former PWD who once belonged to the now-defunct Diabetes Online Community. We'd all be celebrating, so what better way to bring us together for a big celebration! Now THAT would be a great way to mark the end of diabetes, together, and the formation of the....

Cured Diabetics Online Community (CDOC)!

A new online community would be born with a cure, as well! AWEsomeNESS, even more!

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