Admiration.

Today's prompt: We are all diabetes bloggers, but we come from many different perspectives. Pick a type of blogger who is different from you and tell us why they inspire you - why you admire them - why it’s great that we are all the same but different!

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My first thought when sitting down to write this was, "Wait... I only get to pick one type?"

I can't say that I learn the most from any one segment of the diabetes blogging community - heck, I don't even really like calling them "segments". There's a lot to learn from every voice at this party, and I appreciate that so many voices are willing to share and be heard. We're all in the same fight, when it comes down to it.

As a former child who happened to also have diabetes, I'm not sure I ever realized just how much extra work diabetes was for my parents - which is a credit to their ability to apparently shield me from that. I know there were middle-of-the-night blood sugar checks (because I can remember half-waking up for them, but just laying there and pretending to be asleep). I know that meals were altered to fit the exchange diet I had to be on (because back then, you "ate for the insulin", so to speak, instead of the other way around), and food was measured and weighed. And I learned more recently that part of the reason I never saw my mom even have so much as one glass of wine when I was growing up was because she didn't ever want to be impaired, in case my diabetes and I needed her in an emergency. (My dad hardly ever had alcohol, either.)

But it took until very recently for me to gain a deeper appreciation of how particular events of my life must have felt and looked from their side of things.

I have the parent bloggers in the diabetes online community to thank for that.

Posts like this one from Hallie at The Princess and the Pump, or this one from Wendy at Candy Hearts (and there are so many more parent bloggers I read and look up to!) give me a glimpse. My parents had to use glucagon on me twice as a child - the only two times in my life that I've needed it so far. Both times my dad had come in to check on me in the early morning hours, and he found me laying in bed with my eyes open, but unresponsive.

The first time, the glucagon worked quickly.

The second time, it didn't. They called an ambulance. All I remember about it is that I woke up to see two paramedics standing at the foot of my bed with my parents, and I couldn't figure out why they were there.

The parents of children with diabetes who share their stories with us are awesome; courageous; human. Dedicated and determined. They give me a glimpse of what that role in life must have been like for my parents. They open my eyes to how much hoop-jumping, bending-over-backwards, and juggling the parents of children with diabetes do, all while helping their kids to feel as "normal" as possible. (They're very nimble folks, apparently.) They are, to me, amazing.

They also give me some hope that, if that role in life ever becomes my own, I can handle it - because others before me have done so with such strength and resilience.

So THANK YOU to those parents. I admire all that you do for your children; for us.

*Edit: My mom tells me that I'm remembering the facts a bit incorrectly - glucagon was used the second time, but the first time they used glutose gel. Thanks, Mom! :)