How many times have you heard this? How many times have you felt this? How many times have you said this? It is so easy to do. We are all human and all feel that we live in a bubble. A bubble that is all our own.

Let me give you one piece of advice, if I may. The next time you feel like saying just that, before you do, look around you. Do you see the fear? Do you see the hurt? Do you see the anger? Do you see the loss?

If you don’t, then you need to start looking harder. I can say this because those are the feelings that I have felt for so very long and still feel to this day. It wasn’t that I was diagnosed with Diabetes, so how can I claim these feelings? I can and I do because it was my mother and father that were diagnosed with Diabetes. It was my mother and father that were constantly battling a disease that would eventually win. It was my mother and father that I lost due to the disease.

So how can I say it was not their disease and that I should let them be? How? I will tell you how. It was my brother, sister and I that sat in endless hospital rooms waiting, praying, hoping and bargaining for miracles. It was my brother, sister and I that would beg our parents to fight, to try, to not give up. It was my brother, sister, and I that sat side by side as we said goodbye to our parents one last time.

I cannot tell you what it is like to be diabetic and I hope I never can. I can tell you what it is like to be a daughter and a sister of a of someone with

 Diabetes. I can tell you how it feels to be a family member, a friend or loved one. It is frustrating, it is scary, it is maddening and so much more. You watch as your father fights every thing he has to live, only after years of ignoring a disease that if it had been taken seriously from day one may not have won. You watch as that same disease comes in and runs through your family a second time, only much faster with your mother. The emotions are sometimes over-whelming. The anger is toward a disease that has absolutely no right to destroy a family in one fast swoop. The fear is that some day in the near future you will be diagnosed with the same fate. That same fear is because a family of five is now three. Out of that three, two more are diagnosed with that very disease that less than five years earlier took both your parents. What sadness as you pick up the phone to share exciting news or events of the day with your two best friends, your parents, only to realize they are no longer there to answer your call.

So the next time you decide this is your disease and no one else's business, Stop! Take a long look around. For one moment, imagine your child, your partner, your parent, your friend, and your family. Take a moment and "feel" how it is to be your supporter and then tell them… "It is my disease, leave me alone." I cannot imagine it being quite as easy any more.