The Constant in the Variable

Link to Sugarcoated, Letting God work in me, and Blessing in the unexpected — this is the fourth in a series of reflections.

You still have to plan. That’s the thing.

With Type 1 diabetes and coeliac, you can’t just wing it. Low blood sugar means confusion, shaking, collapse if you don’t catch it. Gluten means days of pain and weeks of gut damage. So you pack the snacks, calculate the doses, research the restaurants, map out the pharmacies. You plan because the consequences of not planning are immediate and physical.

But you also can’t trust the plan.

Because the plan assumes your body will cooperate. It assumes the restaurant understood “gluten free.” It assumes your blood sugar won’t tank in the middle of a museum or spike overnight for no reason. The plan is necessary — and insufficient.

Here’s what it feels like:

A few months ago, that tension got to me more. I’d plan, then feel the anxiety rise anyway because I knew the plan wouldn’t hold. Every trip felt like a risk calculation.

Something feels different lately. Not fixed — just lighter.

The dread before trips is quieter now. The mental spiral of worst-case scenarios runs shorter. I’m still planning, still preparing. But I’m not white-knuckling it the way I was.

I don’t know if this feeling will stay. When I get a pump, everything resets. New device, new assumptions, new learning curve.

But here’s what I keep coming back to: when the rules changed, I changed with them. When things got hard, I found a way through. I didn’t stop.

I’m fortunate. A continuous glucose monitor. A wife who understands. A healthcare system that, for all its flaws, gives me options.

It is possible to thrive with this disease.

Not in spite of the daily variability, but somehow alongside it. The blood sugars still swing. The gut still reacts. The planning never stops. But I’m not just surviving anymore. I’m enjoying my life. Travelling. Eating out. Making plans I would have been too scared to make a year ago.

That’s happening right now, despite everything that changes day to day.

When I look back at the moments I should have spiralled and didn’t — I can’t take credit. That resilience feels given, not earned.

I believe God has been shaping that in me. Not by making things easier, but by meeting me in the hard parts. And if that’s been true so far, I have reason to believe it’ll keep being true. Even when the pump arrives and the learning starts again.

“He who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion.”
— Philippians 1:6