A question for the Diabetes (Type 1) Community

If your or your loved one’s experience living with this condition were a book, what would its title be and why? And what would you name the chapter you are currently in?

Answers from the Community

Title would be “My Future with Diabetes” because that’s where I would have been at that time. The present chapter would be “It’s Not So Terrible.” Been dealing with it so long that it isn’t that detrimental to anything I’m dealing with. It’s all I’ve known for 50 years. Thank you.

The title would be, “What It’s Like to Really Live with Diabetes,” to help people that don’t understand what it’s really like. Current chapter would be “The Wonderful World of Current Technology.”

I think living with diabetes, if you were to title a book, could be something along the lines of, “It’s Not About the Battle, It’s About the War.” That speaks volumes to everything that goes into diabetes. You might have small wins one day, small wins another day, but the key to diabetes is stability over time. That’s really the only way you keep yourself safe and free of longterm effects. The chapter I’m in right now would be “Winning the Little Fights,” talking about really making sure that you celebrate the wins where you can, and you prepare for the next day when things don’t go your way. It’s not about getting discouraged. It’s about just staying involved for the long run.

“Making Lemons Out of Lemonade” or even better, “Playing the Hand That You’re Dealt.” I think the chapter would have to be called “Just Because You’re Dealt a Crappy Hand, Doesn’t Mean That Our Cards Aren’t in the Deck.”

The title of my book would be “A Story of Strength.” This chapter would be “Going Into the Sunset of My Life” because I am 54 or 53 going on 54. My youngest child is going off to college, and I’m getting to the point where I don’t have that many years left in my life.

Yeah so, if I were to name it, name a book after my condition, I’d probably name it, “The More You Know,” and the chapter I’m in now would be “Maintenance” just because I’ve done this for a little while now, and I’ve pretty much settled in with things. So, “Maintenance” would be the chapter that I’d be in now.

“Yet Another Thing, Living with Diabetes,” that would be the title. The current chapter I’m on is “If I Can Maintain Good Blood Sugar, You Definitely Can Too.”

What would I name the book? I don’t even know. Probably something like “The Ups and Downs” or just like a up arrow and then a down arrow, leave it really open to interpretation until you start reading it. What would the name of the chapter I am currently in be? If we’re going around just symbol lines, it would be a question mark or the shrugging emoji. Words it would probably be “Taking It Day by Day.” Just because that’s what I’m doing. Trying to figure it out, trying to find a balance, trying to take better care of myself.

“Diabetes”…Actually, “Type-One Diabetes: You Can Still Do Stuff.” And that would it be on the chapter that “Trail Running and Hiking in Colorado With Diabetes”… Probably or something like that, I don’t know. Or “Figuring Out Diabetes While Trail Running 20 Miles.” I don’t know. Yeah, in summary, I think I’m still learning, still trying to figure everything out, and I’m definitely giving myself a harder challenge, sometimes backpacking and hiking, and doing a lot of things outdoors, probably in a high-risk area in the Colorado mountains. So, definitely interesting, never a dull moment.

Diabetes is not just for people that take diabetes medication. There’s people out there with problems with their sugars who are not on medication, so the name of the book would be “Anybody That Wants to Have Their Sugar of Their Body System and Carbohydrates Better for Their Life Habits.”

That is another great question. I would name it like “Surviving and Thriving With Type One Diabetes,” something like that because she was a really young girl at age six when she was diagnosed, and she’s about to go to college in the fall. So something like “Surviving and Thriving,” or “Thriving,” or “Growing Up Diabetic,” or “Type One Doesn’t Break You,” or something fun like that. The name of the chapter were currently is “Off to College.” So, off to independence, off to her being on her own with this, off to her managing on her own, I’m going to take a back seat now, and so “Off to College, Off to Independence” will be our latest chapter.

The title of my book would be called, “The Ups and Downs.” I would choose that as kind of a metaphor for the ups and downs of taking insulin and having high and low blood sugars, and then the highs and lows in life, something like that. Then the chapter I would be in would be called, “In Reverse.” It would be analyzing my life and decisions I’ve made that could have been better managing my diabetes and just over analyzing my life and maybe better decisions I’ve kind of made overall.

I think for naming the title of a book maybe, “One Day at a Time,” something like that, just to kind of keep the emphasis on every day you live with your condition but also every day is a day that you’re managing your condition and the level of effort that you put into that is completely up to you and hopefully, strong management of the condition just leads to good longterm health and no issues, short term or longterm, to live as much of a normal life as possible. The current chapter I’m in right now, probably just “Staying the Course.” I mean, I’m in my early to mid-thirties and feel like I’m doing well with the condition and know that I want to live a nice, long, healthy life.

I would call it “Balance; Finding the Beauty in the Highs and Lows,” and the chapter I’m in right now would be titled “A Leap of Faith with a Security Pack” or something along “How to Pack Your Hiking Bag for the Longest Hike of Your Life” because right now I’m in that fundamental truly building stage to make sure that I am secure for this long journey that I’m on. Yeah.

I think the book would be called “Medically High Maintenance” and the chapter that I’m currently in might be called “Doing My Best.”

“Living Between the Lines,” “Comma.”

Name of the book would be, “It’ll Be Okay” and chapter that I’m in would be, “Lucky.”