Preparing to meet friends we have not seen for a while and in my mind, I am trying to decide how to respond when asked, ‘how are you?’ Three words, asked innocently and with such genuine interest, though difficult for me to answer.
When asked how I am, what runs through my mind in those milliseconds is seeing my daughter doing her daily finger pricks, I see her inject her insulin, I see her trying to calculate her carbohydrates, ever so carefully. I see my youngest daughter playing and although seemingly oblivious to the difficulties we face as a family, I know she is very aware of how T1D affects her sister. I see visits to the hospital, I see my daughter missing class and sitting in student office because her levels are too high, I see her tears and frustration because of her diagnosis. I see levels go down, I see levels go up, I see her levels stable. I see CGM changes, I see her writing her levels in her record book and I see her jelly bean jar.
Explaining how we are managing T1D is complicated. So, in light of this and realising that some things are just too difficult to explain sometimes, I will say ‘good’.