A Long Silent Walk on a Tightrope

On June 16 ,in Belleville Ontario, a plaque was unveiled to honour the contribution of James B Collip as one of the team members that included Frederick Banting, Charles Best and John Macleod who discovered insulin and saved millions of lives and enabled people to live with Type 1 Diabetes. Having just received the Joslin Gold medal from the Joslin institute at Harvard, for having lived with T1D for 50 years, I was invited to attend the ceremony. Subsequently,the story was profiled in County and Quinte Living, Autumn 2014. Somewhat uneasy concerning the publication of the story, I am now pleased and proud that. it has been told. For my first 15 years of diabetes, I would tell very few people that I was diabetic! However my questions still remain . Am I doing it right? Should I check my blood sugar again for the 15th time today? Was I just lucky that I have made it this far? Do I have some protective gene inside me ? Or does my state of mind and attitude count for far more than we can imagine? Don't have the answers but what I do know is that I do not mind getting up in the morning.. And I truly look forward to each day and doing what I can to keep on going.

William Murtha
Brighton, Canada