Laurie Schnebly

I was diagnosed at age 3, as my parents and baby sister and I were leaving on a summer road trip to visit my grandparents. Mom said “Laurie’s been so listless lately; let’s swing by the pediatrician on the way out of town.” So we did, and my sugar level was 950, and Dad took the baby to stay with the grandparents while Mom stayed with me at the hospital for a few days until we went home armed with a glass syringe to sterilize in boiling water and fizzy tablets to drop in a test tube filled with urine for blood sugar readings.

I used to think prayers didn’t pay off, because my parents and grandparents were all praying fervently that my diabetes would vanish. But later, in my 50s, I realized that what they were REALLY asking God to do was to give me a healthy, happy, normal life…which He has. Successful career, happy family…my husband’s mom was hunchbacked and he’d always said “I love my mom but I’m gonna marry a woman who’s 100% healthy,” then fell in love with me. And our son said the same thing, but fell in love with a 95%-blind woman who’s given us an adorable grandson. It’ll be interesting to see who HE winds up marrying!

Diabetes has never gotten in the way of anything I wanted to do — I love traveling, especially to give fiction writing workshops anywhere from Los Angeles to London to New Zealand to New York. After publishing half a dozen Harlequin Romances I saw a bumper sticker: “Those who can, do. Those who believe others can ALSO do, teach” and it changed my life. I’ve even run into some fellow Type 1s (or their parents) along the way, which is always a treat.

The best advice I ever heard was from the pediatrician when I was 12. “Teenagers tend to rebel and eat things they shouldn’t,” he said. “Just accept that it’s gonna happen, and ALWAYS give insulin to compensate.” Which I’ve done, and it’s made life feel a lot less constricting. So for any new diabetic who thinks “oh, no, I can never eat ___ again,” keep in mind that you can binge sometimes as long as you compensate with extra insulin. 🙂

My mom read, back in the 1950s, that “today’s children are deprived of nothing, except deprivation” which tends to lead to unrealistic views of life. She always observed that I was the best adjusted of her four kids, probably as a result of experiencing deprivation as an ordinary fact of life, and I feel like that’s a nice bonus!.