The Embers of Diabetes – A Campfire Experience
By Donna Gibson
Published Jun 10, 2013
On my last camping trip, my husband and I had an enjoyable time around the campfire with my cousin, his wife, and their two grandchildren and enjoyed several calm, dark evenings watching the sparks and colors of the flames. While watching the burning firewood, we shared stories. We reminisced about family, health, jobs, and shared memories.
Another topic we discussed was the fact that starting a fire isn’t as simple as one might believe, if you have never done it before. We talked about the television show “Survivor”, too, where contestants ignite a fire with flint or stick friction and dry timbers. Years of experience taught me that lighting a match to small dry kindling and sticks, then adding larger branches, and later a large log, will keep the fire burning. Soon the flames produce a nice, warm fire to enjoy for hours as you keep adding on a piece at a time. Fire helps fire; small pieces start larger pieces.
It takes perception, preparation, time, patience, and perseverance to build a useful fire that everyone can enjoy. If it is kindled improperly, then there is no fire. You have to have the right fuel and knowledge to keep the fire burning and turn that little flame into a useful fire.
The same attributes — perception, preparation, time, patience, and perseverance — are important when it comes to managing diabetes. It takes perception to realize how diabetes affects the body and preparation to fuel your body with good foods and build exercise into your day. You have to take time to learn the disease, and you need to take the time to manage it daily. It takes patience to learn which foods affect your glucose levels and which foods are perfect to keep you in balance. It takes perseverance to stick to a daily diet and exercise plan and to avoid those harmful temptations that decrease your quality of health. We want to have a strong body and feel worthy of life, much like a well-built campfire.
When a diabetic strays from a healthy diet and exercise plan, he or she gets burned, in a sense, much like someone playing with fire. When diabetes is poorly managed, blood sugar rises, and that increases the risk for long-term complications like vision, nerve, and kidney problems. It is like a campfire out of control, without a barrier, and flames going in all directions, and escaping beyond the boundaries, if not watched attentively — and I’m not just sharing smoke.
Many times around the campfire, I use a poker stick to poke at the embers for entertainment, but also to keep the fire burning. Moving around the pieces of wood keeps things going properly and keeps the sparks full of life. So it is with the life of a diabetic — one needs to try new healthier foods to find that stability in their blood glucose levels and find foods that agree with their body. They also need to exercise to burn calories and maintain their weight properly. Healthy choices keep you at your strongest.
Sometimes my husband Don, who has type 2 diabetes, needs a daily kindling. Sometimes he needs a little kindling word of encouragement, a little prayer, a little smile of love and appreciation, a little sharing and caring, a little of my time, and maybe even a little poking. This ignites our hearts together as we work together each day with a seemingly joyful, fresh start to each day.
Sometimes, I catch Don in a bag of chips or cookies, or learn he ate fried foods from the drive-through or a restaurant; and these are things that need extinguished, contained, or better-controlled with better choices. It will take time for him to learn to say “no” to many things and to say “yes” to healthier options, or to learn to have unhealthy foods in moderation, along with healthy foods.
Don did have an episode with his diabetes last week. He ate a double cookie marshmallow s’more and didn’t feel well after eating it on top of other sweets. He took his blood test before bedtime and his blood sugar was 167, much higher than usual. The s’more was something that he should have said “no” to, and maybe he will know next time when he is offered these things around the campfire from visitors.
The following morning at camp, he was feeling much better, but he failed to have a healthy breakfast. He had cookies and milk. The remainder of the day he did eat fairly good choices and do some walking for exercise. He still has some adjusting to do. He has to work on discipline and stop making poor choices that will someday affect him.
On a separate note, it was encouraging to know that his offer to give blood at the Red Cross bloodmobile there at the camp was so appreciated. His type O negative blood, which is so highly needed, was accepted. He compassionately gave of his time, and I was proud that he was able to do that.
Little embers can bring life to something much greater. Your spark of life can be brightness where you shine your life brighter for others to see. Just share it with others and see how your world changes around you!