Birthdays can be fun. On my birthday this year I started thinking about cake and frosting (I think it was the dancing cupcake with my face superimposed on it that a friend texted to me that got it started). I reminisced about all those birthday parties I attended as a kid when the child’s mother would slice the frosting off my piece of cake, or not offer me cake at all.
I remember post-DCCT, when we learned about carbohydrate counting and began teaching families how to “work it in.” For the first time (well, maybe not across the board) kids with diabetes started eating cake (with frosting – gasp!) at birthday parties.
One of the challenges of living with diabetes is the comments and looks we get from people when we “have our cake.” The goal is to balance what we eat with what we do and how much insulin we take. We aim to make healthy food choices most of the time and “work in” fun things like cake & frosting now and then. Isn’t that what everyone – with or without diabetes – strives for?
Those of us who lived through the “forbidden foods” years of diabetes will probably always cringe when people see us eat a piece of cake. My hope for today’s children with diabetes, though, is that eating cake will be part of a healthy, happy approach to managing diabetes and living life. Maybe they’ll refuse the cake because they simply don’t want it, and maybe they’ll have seconds.