Sick and Tired

THE STRENGTH TO KEEP GOING

There are days when living with diabetes feels like running a marathon you didn’t sign up for, with no finish line in sight. I don’t mean the big challenges—the hospital visits, the emergencies, or the times when everything seems to go wrong. It’s the small, relentless demands of the condition that can wear you down. The constant monitoring, the endless decisions, and the fact that diabetes doesn’t take a single minute off.

The Strength to Keep Going

Some days, I just feel sick and tired of it all. Sick of checking blood sugars. Sick of planning every meal. Sick of the sheer mental weight of making sure I’m doing everything right—or at least well enough to stay healthy. Tired of always having to think about it, even in moments when I just want to forget.

There was one day, not too long ago, when those feelings hit me hard. It was a perfectly normal day—I wasn’t dealing with a crisis or anything dramatic. I had woken up feeling fine but had one of those mornings where nothing seemed to go right. My blood sugar was high, my insulin didn’t seem to be working as quickly as I wanted, and I just felt exhausted from the grind of it all. I remember standing in my kitchen, looking at my glucose monitor, and thinking, I can’t do this anymore.

But then, in the quiet of that moment, another thought crept in: You’ve felt this way before, and you’re still here.

That realization gave me pause. It wasn’t the first time I’d felt overwhelmed by diabetes, and it won’t be the last. But somehow, every time I’ve felt like I couldn’t take another step, I’ve found a way to keep going. I thought about all the times I’d pushed through: the scary moments, the frustrating days, the times I wanted to give up but didn’t. Every single one of those moments was proof of something I don’t always give myself credit for: my strength.

It’s okay to feel sick and tired of diabetes. It’s okay to have days when it feels like too much. What matters is that I’ve learned to keep going, even when it feels impossible. And I’ve learned to give myself grace on those hard days. I remind myself that perseverance isn’t about never struggling—it’s about showing up, even when you don’t feel like it.

Diabetes has taught me a lot over the years, but maybe the most important lesson is this: resilience isn’t flashy or dramatic. It’s quiet. It’s in the small, steady acts of care you give yourself, even when you feel like throwing in the towel. It’s in the way you keep going, even when you’re sick and tired of it all.

On those days when it feels like too much, I remind myself of this: I’ve felt this way before, and I’ve always found a way forward. And that, to me, is proof of a strength I didn’t know I had.