Diahbeetus

In a few short months, Probably, maybe even now, Nolan will have been diabetic for more than half his life. I wont lie. It stinks. But there is a glimmer... at the end of the diabetic tunnel. A1c has remained in the single dijits... Go ahead, "tsk" all you want about that... I know my kid and I know that is an accomplishment. It was so bad for awhile that I feared someone would report me.
He hid his pump, He lied about sugars. When i went to check his meter, he would take the battery out. it was ridiculous. Arguments every day.
Locking myself in the bathroom at the roller derby in Iowa City and having a good cry... Watching my kid not care....
But now... He has figured out that he has to take care of his sugars if he wants some independence.
I never punished over diabetes related stuff. But, there are things that he cannot do if he is not taking care of it.
He can't stay over at friends houses, or leave to go ride bikes with his friends all day. or to the skate park for hours at a time.
He either decided that he wanted some independence, and started checking without being asked, and bolusing without being asked... Its possible, and preferable that he cares about himself a bit more... but I am going to take what I can get.
He has been out all day... riding bikes with his friends.
He takes his kit with him, and though he seldom checks when he is out, he does check before he leaves and if I call him.
He loses his phone if I call him and he doesnt answer. He will lose it for up to a week, depending on how mad I am, and how many times I call. If he calls me right back, then I forgive.
He is impressing me. He shows up on time and even early.
He does take risks... wants to live on the edge. I am not sure if it is something that goes on with oldest children, or if it comes from having an incurable disease.... But its who he is. I cant stop that.
I feel like he understands sometimes why I am strict. Most of his friends get to run willy nilly all day long. But thier parents, I think... are pretty naive.
They don't worry about their child collapsing from hypo or hyperglycemia. They also, maybe, don't know all the tricks and lies and naughty things kids can pull on thier parents. I know because I was a very sneaky and manipulative little girl.
I lied to my parents about where I was. I went to slumber parties that were actually keggers when I was younger than Nolan. I rode in cars with boys two years before I was allowed to date. I drank. I smoked. My parents could never smell it on me because they were smokers. Whats to smell?
When I was accused I pulled the old, "I cant believe you don't believe me" bit, and worked my parents guilt... They ate it up... because they wanted me to be good.
I feel like I eat nothing that he serves me.   And I couldn't care less if he is good by anyone else's standards.   I want him to be,  simply,  to keep existing. 

I have never thrown away a vial of insulin. Not one. I have so many. I am not sure what I am hanging onto them for. I had a few ideas of what I would do with them and Im not sure I want to now.
At one point I was going to fill them with something special, and maybe sell them for a a fundraiser, but I never knew what.
I have hundreds of vials. Fat little Novolog vials, and Long Lantus vials, maroon decoreated Humalog vials... Hundreds.
They take up space...
I open the drawer that I keep them in and I am not sure what I am going to do with them, so I shut the drawer.
I sometimes gaze at them and think about how these little glass bottles have affected our lives.
They have all had a copay.. ten dollars, twenty dollars, a dollar, depending on the insurance we carried at the time... I dont keep them because of the money... they have no monetary value.
Most of them have a date written on them... either in permanent marker, or in pen, on a small piece of torn paper, and fastened under a tegaderm. The date it was opened.
My sons life, accessed through a rubber stopper... day after day after day.. month after month, a needle, plunged through rubber...
and it leaves no trace at all....
Not one tiny dot, the route to his survival... and the eye cannot see it.
Still, air tight after accessed.... Like it never happened... like the diabetes is from a different reality, and like it it was never there.... a whisper in a crowd.

My husband knows not to throw them away. He tried once...
but I cant, somehow...
I just need them...
They are a comforting, somehow...
and they are in a drawer.

and one day, I will know exactly what I am supposed to do with them...