“Back in my day, we used pork-sourced insulin when I was diagnosed!” I may one day proclaim to my future grandchildren.

At this point in time, there will be a cure for diabetes and they will laugh off my fireside tales of the struggles of the past, oblivious to the hardships that generations before them have faced. Honestly, that’s how it should be if we aim to improve the world during our brief time here.

So many changes have occurred in diabetes treatments since my diagnosis just before my third birthday in the early 1990s. And I have not endured half of what rockstars like Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor have lived through regarding diabetes management processes! Change does not have to be a comparison battle, rather it should grant a clear perspective of just how blessed we are today despite a conniving autoimmune condition.

Almost one year ago I began using the Dexcom CGM (continuous glucose monitor) in the hopes of alleviating anxiety surrounding my diabetes. From the first day, I was absolutely floored by this product. Sure, it is technology and it is not the same as a properly-functioning pancreas. I have to carefully prep my insertion sites to avoid blistering rashes. And I am still waiting on my winning lottery ticket so that I can make my first purchase: a fulltime nurse who will check my blood sugar at night and will perform Dexcom insertions on me so that I do not have to do the one-handed pretzel move to get a sensor in my lower back.

Despite these minor issues, Dexcom is, in my humble opinion, the best quality product on the diabetes market. Due to many diabetes hurdles this year, I cannot boast of an A1C that drastically improved while on Dexcom, but I can say that my mental anguish regarding diabetes has lessened substantially thanks to Dexcom’s accurate readings. That, my friends, is half the battle. I still fear overnight lows, but I am much more confident that I will wake up thanks to Dexcom rattling and alarming from an empty coffee mug on my nightstand. I owe my life to Dexcom, as do many others. In the past, we all had to make do with what we had, and plenty of us survived prior to CGMs. But Dexcom is an added safeguard that makes life less complicated. It is the sort of change that is easy to embrace.

The Dexcom Facebook group was my true introduction to the diabetic online community. For the most part, this group is wonderfully supportive and non-judgmental- a place where we can all feel at home. We are able to share our scary moments and our triumphs with an audience who “gets it.” As I ventured off into the blogosphere, I fostered genuine friendships with others in the community, but I will always have Dexcom to thank for being the springboard to finding some of my largest supporters in fighting diabetes.

In grade school my mother used to drive to the auditorium to check my blood sugar every day at lunch. These were the infamous NPH and R days, and lunchtime was primetime for lows. My mother recalls seeing me file into the cafeteria with the rest of my class looking white as a ghost; she does not know how I had enough energy to even walk on some occasions when my blood sugar hovered in the 30s and 40s. There was no Dexcom back then to alert my teacher to the rapid decline.

On the playground in fourth grade, Michelle spoke the unfiltered truth. “I’m sorry that I didn’t invite you to my sleepover for my birthday. You could come if you weren’t diabetic, but my Mom doesn’t know how to take care of your diabetes so you can’t sleep over.”

In fairness to Michelle’s Mom, after twenty-four years of diabetes, I’m still trying to crack its code. I give her credit for recognizing that this disease is much more serious than an herbal cure remedy. Perhaps she could have coached her child on her delivery of the bad news a little more, but we can’t always have it all.

When I see the parents of children using Dexcom CGM post in the Facebook group about little Joey or Susie attending the first big sleepover of the school year, it never fails to bring tears to my eyes. Those kids put up with enough pokes and prods, fingersticks and pump site rotations, Dexcom insertions and limited cake consumption that they warrant having some fun with their friends every once in a while. They deserve to stay up all night eating popcorn and watching movies, forgetting that diabetes exists while Mom and Dad rest comfortably at home watching the steady line of the Nightscout Project’s Pebble watch display or the Dexcom Share apps.

Enjoy that good type of change. Remember the freedom that this product affords us, even on the days where the calibrations seem a bit off. After all, we are dealing with type one diabetes; diabetes’ “calibrations” to everyday life are rarely on the mark. Innovative products like Dexcom CGM allow us to live life in the moment, to have an additional security blanket onboard, to do things that diabetics in the past may not have been able to do.

To the parents of the kids going to the sleepovers where Dexcom gets the invite, too: Your kids will thank you for allowing them to just be kids one day when they are old enough to realize the sacrifices that you made for them. One day we will all sit with our respective families around the campfire and talk about that first sleepover as a diabetic, the first time fast-acting insulin was introduced, and so on, until we can finally talk about the first big meal after the cure.

Keep up the good work.