I am a parent, not a pancreas.

I remember sitting in a hospital room with the Certified Diabetes Educator just 36 hours or so after C had been diagnosed with diabetes. The CDE was going over some things with my husband and me. We got a lot of information in the days we were in the hospital, and I'll admit that I forgot some of a lot of it before we actually went home, but I'll never forget him saying, "Remember, you are a parent, not a pancreas."

At the time, I thought he was so wise. "He's right," I thought. "I am her parent. Nothing more." Since then, though, I have come to the conclusion that his statement was complete and total crap. Last time I checked, her pancreas sucked. So, really, we are the only pancreas she's got.

We measure blood sugar and ingested carbohydrates, weigh that against any physical activity, and decide how much insulin she should get.We are up at 1:30, 2:30, 3:30, 4:30am monitoring her current blood sugar. We actually administer the insulin. We are her pancreas ... We. Are. It.

I do get what he was saying: we don't get 24/7 instructions and feedback from her brain like a real pancreas does, so it's really a guessing game to keep it all in balance. If we try to figure out why everything we did worked one day, but the next day, when we did the exact same things, it all fell apart like a Jenga tower, we will go crazy. And I can't afford to go crazy, because one thing I know I am is a warrior, a fighter, a ninja. But my husband and I are the only thing keeping her alive at this point. Without our diligence, our data analysis, our ability to do fraction-based math, she would literally die. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is not an acceptable outcome (nominee for understatement of the year, right there).

So we will be parents AND her pancreas AND ninjas - all three - so that my daughter, who needs all three, can have them.