D is for Diabetes

Type 1 diabetes runs in my family. It's a really scary disease. My dad is diabetic, and I've seen him on death's doorstep because of it. When I was seven I watched the paramedics cart him out of our house on a stretcher. I thought he was dead. He was in the hospital for a long time, at one point he was so bad the doctors advised my grandparents to and my mother to have a priest give him his last rites. Instead they had him transferred to a different hospital where he recovered pretty quickly. I still have no idea what happened that he got so sick in the first place, but it was terrifying. Five years later his kidneys failed and he was put on dialysis. He refused to allow my siblings and me to be tested for a kidney match. Luckily my dad is one of eight kids, so he had no trouble finding a donor match quickly.

Now my dad's doctor is running a trial to assess the likelihood of developing diabetes in close relatives of type 1 diabetics. My son is in the trial. My dad is pushing hard to get my siblings, my nieces, and me in the trial as well. He worries too much that we'll all end up diabetic.