The Boy and the Egg

  

A friend asked what it was like for my son to live his life with Type 1 diabetes.

I always struggle to give an idea of life for my son. There are metaphors about taming tigers and dragons but that’s such a strong and scary image. I like the image of the egg better. Eggs are small, fragile and complex, quite like a pancreas in some ways. 

I told my friend that, from my perpective, having Type 1 diabetes is like the Primary School project where students are given a raw egg. They must carry it with them at all times and take care of it. It can seem manageable at the start but generally by a day or so into this experiment, it’s not so much fun any more.

My son has been told that he can live a full life and do everything that any other person can. Sure, he can and he does but he has to carry this egg and not let it smash. 

He is so clever that he can play rugby whilst holding this egg.  What skill!

At school he does assessments and makes sure the egg does not roll off the desk and smash. The grades he achieves may not always be the highest but he’s there and that egg has never once fallen off the edge of that desk.

He hangs out with friends, manages to look cool yet still he arrives home with that egg intact. He’s the ultimate multi-tasker!

He can let me carry his egg for a while but I have to give it back because ultimately he needs to know that it’s his egg. 

There are times when I think he’d like to throw that egg right at my face as I want to check now and then that there are no cracks in it.

The biggest difference between my boy and the Primary project: he will have to keep that egg forever.