Oh, did you know that next Tuesday is World Diabetes Day? There have been a few things online about it, so it may have come across your radar…
Diabetes Australia (disclosure: where I work) is running a campaign to acknowledge and recognise women living with diabetes, and women who support those of us who do.
We have developed a series of superSHEroe characters, representing just some of the amazing women affected by or working in diabetes. (The artist for these is the brilliant Claire Murray who I wrote about earlier this year. She is the creator of Megan, a wonderful diabetes superhero. Claire herself is somewhat of a superSHEro – her superpower is the ability to superbly draw and capture diabetes.)
Yesterday, we introduced the Dynamic Duo – Fantastic Frankie and her mum Lightening Lou.
I love this one so much because I feel that I have my very own Fantastic Frankie in my fabulous daughter.
My kid is my superSHEro. She has grown up around diabetes and while she doesn’t have it herself, she has undoubtedly been affected by diabetes because I live with it.
She came into this world and my diabetes meant that she needed to spend time in the special care nursery of the hospital. It meant that she needed to have her heel pricked for the first few days of her life multiple times to make sure that her glucose levels weren’t low.
She has grown up knowing to be careful of diabetes devices attached to my body when she jumps in for a cuddle. She had to learn early that there were times I simply couldn’t play with or read to her because diabetes needed my attention more urgently that she did. And she learnt to wait her turn, knowing I would always get to her; it just may have been after a juice box or jelly beans were consumed.
My superSHEro may not wear a cape or a mask, instead she’s likely to be wearing something she pinched from my closet. She may usually have her head in a Jane Austen book rather than lassoing the bad guys. She can be found lying on the grass out the front of our house with her puppy (who has no superpowers whatsoever, I’m afraid) or hanging out with her friends, listening to music rather than uncovering plots to bring down the free world.
My own superSHEro is bundled up in the mess and wonder of (two weeks from being) a teenager. She may be moody one moment, and delightfully snuggly the next. She is perpetually embarrassed by her parents, and horrified at the extent we will go as we desperately try (and fail) to prove to her just how cool we truly are.
But she can also be found grabbing me a juice when I’m low; asking me if I need anything when she notices me acting a little vague (usually just me being vague rather than anything else) or doing a spot of awareness raising and advocacy for diabetes. My diabetes isn’t hers – it doesn’t have to be and I’ve done everything in my (non super-) power to shield her from it – but she has taken it on in her own way.
Her superpower is her strength, her mind, her feistiness and fierceness, her vulnerabilities and her compassion. She takes on the world, she takes on my diabetes. And, (regretfully at times) she takes on her parents.
We wouldn’t have it any other way.
My superSHEro and her mother.
Diabetogenic 
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