Tuesday, March 4, 2014

Zombie Apocolypse

One of the interesting things about being a D parent is that your brain doesn't function the way that other people's brains do. For example, when the nuclear disaster hit Japan two years ago, my first thought was "How will the diabetics in the area get treatment?"

When the miners were trapped in Chile, I was primarily concerned about the diabetic miner and how he would survive. I guess each tale provided me with both unanswered questions and hope: unanswered because I would never know what it was like to be a miner or a Japanese person in a nuclear disaster, and hope because if people, and especially diabetics, could survive such adversities then M might have a fighting chance as well.

But then I started watching The Walking Dead, a particularly addictive series that my high school students recommended. They had been talking about it for quite a while now. I put it off up until this winter. I had finished watching all of the available episodes of Breaking Bad on Netflix and since the first three seasons of The Walking Dead are on there, I thought I'd give it a shot.

It started off as an interesting intellectual exercise: 'what would I do in this situation?', etc.  And although I am about two-thirds of the way through season two (a good stopping point, I thought, considering the upsetting information that our protagonists have just discovered), it wasn't until I took one of Zimbio's famous quizzes that I started thinking about diabetes. The quiz? "Which Walking Dead Character are you?" Spoiler alert: there is only one difference between getting Hershel or Rick. It was the first question on the quiz: What would you look for first?

I took this quiz twice to see what would happen if I gave a different answer to the first question. Why do I care? Because the first answer I gave was "medical supplies." Result: I was Hershel.

But the answer is flawed. And not just because Zimbio's quizzes are full of questions like "pick a color."

I fully acknowledge that if my daughter did not have diabetes, medical supplies would be pretty low down on my list after shelter, food and water. But I do have a daughter with diabetes, and even if it meant that I could only keep her comfortable until the insulin expired and I could find some way to raise pigs and smoosh their pancreases into some sort of inject-able goo while not drawing the attention of zombies, I knew that I would do whatever I could to get to every pharmacy in the area.

So I took the quiz again, and wrote "shelter" for the first answer this time. It was a more honest answer, if I did not have to take diabetes into consideration.

Boom. Now I was Rick.

I decided to take a break from watching The Walking Dead for a few weeks. And not just because I am having zombie-fueled dreams virtually every night.

I have to take a break because I know that there is little I can do to prepare for any kind of colossal disaster that would save my daughter. That depresses me. Oh sure, I have the emergency kit with several infusion sets, batteries, test strips, glucagon, etc. But really, that is designed to serve for a week or two until things go back to normal.

I don't normally sit around worrying about the end of the world as we know it, but watching two or three episodes about surviving a zombie attack each week keeps it at the forefront of my mind. And I would not want to be Hershel or Rick, or even Daryl, even though he has a cool crossbow and amazing shoulders.

Part of being a D parent is letting your child know that if she works at it, everything will be "normal" for her in this life. A lie, for sure, but I know that M is enjoying her life like most teens. I know that we depend on each other as a family. And I know that as she grows more independent, I may not be around to loot the pharmacies for insulin when the zombie or robot apocolypse arrives.

So I have to sit on it, pray the world stays normal, and provide the love and support that she needs. Until then, I'm going to watch the anti-Walking Dead. Maybe some That 70's Show.

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