I used to play the blame game when it came to having diabetes. But all that came to a halt on my first visit to the Diabetes educator. “ You know you’ve done nothing wrong, “ she shared, “some people just have the marker in their genes and it gets triggered by a stressful event. Can you think of a time in your life where you could have triggered the gene?” 

9/11,  thats when everything shifted.

That day was terrible, terrible for everyone.

We were in Manhattan waiting for my mentor and Yoga teacher Alan Finger to teach his yoga class when the planes hit the trade towers. As soon as I realised what had happened, I felt like I’d been shot in the chest, my legs buckling underneath me.  After a few minutes I had to get out of there. My son and stepson were at school a few blocks away and I wanted to be with them. Dazed and feeling sick to my stomach I walked out onto the street. It was quiet; ghost like, people with ashen faces walked beside me. The sky was a crisp blue and I wondered, how could everyone just keep going?

By the time I arrived at the school I was feeling faint. I wanted someone to hold me and look after me, but I wasn’t the only one in shock. I had to pull myself together. It was a relief to have both boys with me. The only way home to Brooklyn was to walk across the 59^th Street Bridge. I could feel fear stuck in my throat, dry and hard. Gripping my sons’ hands, we walked.

Nearly seven hours after the towers had fallen I fell into my husband arms, but it was no consolation for the shock that numbed my body. I couldn’t eat, couldn’t even think because my whole world had turned upside down.

I don’t think I ever really recovered emotionally or physically from that day. And although I can’t specifically pinpoint the day my beta cells started collapsing I started experiencing a lot of strange physical symptoms about a year later. Tingling up and down my body, difficulty concentrating, insomnia, a feeling of being overly expanded, frequent urination, hives and skin rashes, racing heartbeat, difficulty digesting and many more things which turned my life into a living hell.

Recently I read an article that stated that those exposed to the debris from the falling towers are only now showing an array of symptoms and illnesses.

There was nothing I could have done to avoid that day. When the unexpected happens it happens. Right now somewhere in the world some terrifying event is taking place and someone is exposed to something they didn’t expect and could never predict. How does anyone cope? How do we move forward? I imagine a lot of us are reflecting on that today.

A friend of mine posts the same story every year on her facebook page. She says she does it so she never forgets how lucky she is. I also feel lucky, An odd thing to say when one has an incurable disease. Being diabetic is an opportunity to thrive against all odds. In my opinion that’s always the way forward. Keep doing your best, keep loving what is, no matter what.