We attended a wedding over the weekend. Our little family sat at a table with complete strangers, but we quickly found things to talk about. Things we had in common. The lady to Joel’s left was a retired teacher. We had LOTS to chat about, of course.

When the first course was served, Joel, Luke and I started talking about carbs. “We don’t need to count anything in the salad, but the bread, yes.” “What do you think? 15g?”

Of course, her ears perked up and you could tell by the look on the teacher lady’s face, she wondered why we cared that much about how many carbs are in one dinner roll. We were happy to fill her in. Luke was diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes in June. We have to figure out every single carb that goes into Luke’s mouth. We even beat her to any misconceptions that she was about to say. It’s an auto-immune disease. There was nothing he or we could do to stop it from happening. He can eat whatever he wants.

Et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

Next thing we know, the lady across from us- the mom of the maid of honor, I think she said- asks, “So he has it? Diabetes?”

“Yes, he has Type 1 Diabetes.”

“No way!” she says. Then she tells us a story about her  nephew. When he was younger, he got really, really sick. He was in the hospital for a week. He was diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes. He’s now 36. He’s successful. He’s got a family. He’s healthy.

“I just wanted to share that story with you to show you that Type 1 kids can grow up and lead a normal life,” she says.