1 down, about 50 more to go

People showcase anniversaries. Most notably, romantic anniversaries. Behind that, work anniversaries. The former is an expression of love; the latter an expression of accomplishment. People in recovery use anniversaries heavily, both as an expression of accomplishment as well as progress. Humans like round numbers. It’s why $19.99 feels markedly cheaper than $20. $20 feels much bigger because it’s a new set. We do the same thing when we turn 30, 40, and, I’m assuming, 50 and beyond.

Rarely do we celebrate anniversaries of terrible events. Who wants to remember those? Sometimes we do it in mourning or remembrance, but that’s not celebratory as much as it’s reflection. And sometimes, it’s both. Today marks my first anniversary or what those in the diabetic community call a diaversary. We can look back and say that it sucks to have to remember the day that happened, but whether I remember it or not it still happened. And there’s a much worse alternative - having not survived it in order to remember it. And believe me when I tell you, that was a real option.

Hitting the one year mark today means I’ve been creeping up on this. Over the last few months, I’ve been thinking about what was going on one year prior. I was so sick and didn’t know. We had that freak snowstorm in winter of 2018 and I was stuck in the car for 9 hours! The amount of times I had to pee into a water bottle, stealthily, was not normal. But sitting in traffic and snow watching accidents galore was much more cause for alarm at the time. I couldn’t stop ordering cases of water on the cruise in December 2018 - but we were drinking alcohol and sitting in the sun and eating mass produced salty food. Another alarm hiding in plain sight. I lost weight rapidly. Thank you Peloton, right? I was exhausted constantly. Thank you Olapic, GDPR, 65k miles of travel and the holidays, of course. Meanwhile, I was creeping toward certain doom.

And it all came to a head a few days prior to January 17, 2019. Away in Tampa, Florida for work. Couldn’t get out of bed. Tired, sluggish, lethargic. Ashen gray. Guzzling everything I could muster the energy to get to my lips. My blood glucose had to have been 200-300 for several years as my pancreas fought a losing battle. When the war was lost it was 6 months of steady increase. That rise hit critical levels that fateful week in January.

But enough about the diagnosis. In the 12 months since that happened my BG sits around 120 with a standard deviation of about 20. My A1C is in the low 5s (down from 14). I have no symptoms of side effects - neuropathy, vision, cardiology/circulatory issues, foot/hand, etc.

I’ve learned how to eat and enjoy my life while staying in range. I’m in a routine of changing my infusion sites and continuous glucose monitoring. I can travel the world with little interruption (but a ton of planning).

When you boil it all down, here’s the outcome. In 1 short year, that is 2.5% of my life, my life has changed completely while not changing at all. I quickly learned how to make proactive, habit forming changes so I could live every day mostly unaffected.

So, I’ll reflect on what almost happened and remember the feeling of being afraid. Fear is good; it keeps you sharp. But celebrate:

• where I am today

• my long, healthy future

• the people who enabled this success; the list is long:

  • my wife, Linda

  • my motivation, Nicky

  • my parents

  • my friends

  • my colleagues/bosses

  • my medical team

  • the strangers at Tandem and Dexcom who created the equipment that are foundations for success

• the fact that anniversaries of bad days are still anniversaries you’re here to celebrate

I probably won’t celebrate with cake, though.