Instructions Not Included

I have hope on my mind today. I also have it on my hand. I would show you a picture, but I chose a fairly rubbish felt tip pen to do it with, and it's rather faded at this point.

But why? Well I got 'invited' on Facebook to what apparently is the 'Day of Hope' today. I won't cut and paste the info from the event, because I found some of the phrasing awkward, and I didn't quite agree with everything that was suggested. However, what I did agree with was the hope. All the people there are hoping for a cure.

When I met with my consultant a few months after DX, he said to me, 'I thoroughly believe that there will be a cure whilst I am still practising, and probably within the next ten years.' And I really wanted to believe him. But the thing that stopped me was that I knew oh, so well, the stories of my new friends who had all heard the same thing before. A cure in five years, a cure in ten. So whilst I wanted to believe him, I didn't want to put too much stock in something that might never materialise. 

There was recently a lot of publicity over the announcement of the artificial pancreas project, which JDRF are involved with. I recall that being asked about it when I'd read an article on the BBC, and what I thought. I thought it was amazing. But I wasn't jumping up and down. And surely I should have been? Well, maybe. I didn't want to feel desensitised to hope 'before my time', not even being a year old yet, in diabetes terms. But the truth was that I didn't want to get too excited over something that might not come to fruition, not matter how much I might want it to. But more than the artificial pancreas, what I wanted was a cure. I wanted this to be over. 

And that made me think again. It made me think of all my new friends, and if this was how I felt with not even a year of diabetes-life under my belt, how did they feel with five, ten, twenty, thirty or more years under theirs? Do they still hope, after hearing promises of a cure that turned out to be empty, time after time?

One of the Bible verse I hold closest to my heart is all about hope. I have it stuck on my wardrobe, so it's always there when I need it in my lowest moments:

I'm not saying that having hope is easy. It's not. But I thoroughly believe that everything I go through teaches me more patience. And as that verse says, it makes me a better person day by day. The troubles give me hope.  I believe that there will BE a cure. I don't know whether it'll be in the next ten years, or I won't live to see it. I don't know which generation will know the joy that is brought around by the end of this disease. But I know I want to be part of the generation that is part of the change in the world. I want to, and will do all that I can. On the days that I can't quite manage hope, I will settle for faith, as I don't see them as quite the same. On the good days, they'll walk hand in hand. 

But I'm not ready to give up on either yet. And if you have, whilst I can, I'll take your share and hope for you.