the reality of shots

the other day I went to give my daughter a shot of insulin for the food that she had just eaten, as I do multiple times throughout the day and sometimes night.  Everyday, every week, every month, for the past year and a half.  This time, she looked up at me and said "mommy, I don't want a shot."  This was the first time that she had said this to me.  She had trusted me in the hospital with iv's, with multiple, simultaneous shots at diagnosis, with blood tests, with doctor injections, and with myself robotically giving her insulin for the past 16 months.  But not this day.  I don't know what it was.  But today she just didn't want what everyone else already had, injected into her body, anymore.  She was done with being diabetic.  She is only four.  How is that she was only three when she was diagnosed.  Most three year olds don't have to go to the hospital.  Or have to have their playtime interrupted for blood checks, crucial apple juice drinks, and shots.  When did this  become her definition?  Where did my daughter go?  I look at the Christmas photos of her two months before she was diagnosed and I can see something was wrong now.  Her face was so thin.  She had already lost some of her life.  She would tire quickly.  Not for two months, would we have a diagnosis.  For two months, she was slowly dying.  and we didn't know.  Some  may not agree with me, but I was thinking about    people that get cancer, and get treated, and become cancer survivors.  I recently met a woman who is being treated for breast cancer.  When I told her that little sweetie had type 1 diabetes, she said "I will pray for her."  A cancer patient, will pray for my sweetie.  Cancer can be cured for some.  Type 1 diabetes in a little four year old, can not.  Every night, we check her at bedtime and in the middle of the night, just in case, her blood sugar slips too low and she might go into a coma.  every night.  every night, this can happen.  type 1 diabaetes doesn't become controlled or managed.  it never gets easy.  the dangers never disappear.  an overdose of insulin can always happen.  even with great monitoring, things happen.  her fragility will be in hands everyday.  every moment.  as I sleep.  as I wake.  as I leave her in other's care.  the reality of this disease that she is just starting to notice one piece at a time.