I’m trying. I can hear you. I’m trying. I can see you. I’m trying. I can stand up. I’m trying. I can take your card and swipe it in the machine. I’m trying.

I guess you could say that diabetes is an invisible disease. You may know someone who has it, or you may know someone that you don’t know has it. For me, I’ve always been pretty open about being diabetic and how I go about taking care of myself so I can survive each day. But there is always one question I struggle with answering, and you’d think it would be simple for me to answer.

“What does it feel like for your blood sugar to be low?”

I laugh every time I get this question, because no matter how many times I try to explain it to you, you will never be able to fathom what it's like. It is more than just having to sit down and put that straw in the juice box again for the third time. It is more than sitting out of softball practice for at least fifteen minutes. It is more than just sweaty and shaky. It is more than just another finger prick or another excuse to get out of work. For any diabetic, being low is like watching yourself try to cut the wires from a ticking time bomb while the scissors slowly melt away.

Now, let me explain that reference in more detail. If you know someone who is diabetic and you’ve ever asked him what it feels like to be low, he’s probably given you the symptoms. You know, the sweating, the confusion, the shaking, the knees going weak, etc. But nobody ever tells you what it’s like on the inside. For example, you know why you are feeling the way you do, and you know how to fix it. But as you walk to the fridge for that juice box, you forget why you were walking there, or you forget where the juice is in the fridge, even though it is in the same place every single time. Maybe you aren’t low enough to forget where the juice is but you are low enough that you’re shaking too hard to get the apple juice into the actual glass.

Although you know that your sugar is low, as time continues and your blood sugar continuously descends, your abilities descend with it. You have very little time to make it to the juice in the fridge, or the glucose tablets in your purse, or the meter in your locker at work. With each step you take, your sugar continues to decrease, and all you can do is hope that you make it there fast enough. But that’s the thing, it's about hope: hope that you don’t stay up all night having to eat a snack every fifteen minutes, hope that you make it to your purse in time, hope that you don’t crash during your big presentation, your interview, your exam, your wedding. You hope.

Nobody really realizes how much hope diabetics truly have, because as I said before I believe it is invisible. When you do see diabetes, it's either when something has gone really bad or when it is brought up in health class. But when things are going okay, people may not even realize that I am diabetic, and sometimes that’s even worse.

I work at an entertainment center that uses game cards for attractions. It is a large arena-like space, and only one person typically works at each station. My first time being by myself, I worked at laser tag. Here I was, all dressed up in my uniform that still had the creases in it from just coming out of the box.. I watched as customers came up to me ready for their next laser mission, and I swiped their card, opened the door, swiped the card, opened the door. About half way through my six hour shift, I felt it. I saw the orbs around the ceiling lights, I felt my body temperature increase rapidly, I felt my knees start to lock up, and I felt my hands start to sh-

“Excuse me, ma’am, I just want to play some laser tag with my son.”

I look up. I realize that there had been a customer standing in front of me the entire time. All I have to do is take his card and swipe it. Open the door. But instead, I looked at his card. Swipe it. I looked at the card machine.

“Ma’am?”

I looked at the card. Swipe it. My hands shook more as I stared at the card.

“Miss, is something wrong with my card?”

Swipe it. Open the door. Open the swipe. Door it.

“Can you even hear what I am saying?! I just want one game of laser tag. Two people. On THIS card.”

Swipe… Door… Card…Juice…. Low.

As I hear the man raise his voice at me, I see my manager walking over through my tunnel vision. I quickly hobble off to the locker room and check my sugar: 33. My blood sugar was 33. That’s low enough to lose consciousness. But yet I was trying. I was trying to fully grasp what the customer was asking, and although it was a typical transaction, I couldn’t process what he was asking. My sugar was so low that my brain could not even get three words out of my mouth: “I. Am. Low.”

Due to privacy laws, my boss was not allowed to tell that man that his employee was diabetic and just had a severe hypoglycemic event. So for this man, an employee who was standing, breathing, looking at him, had no idea what she was doing, and couldn’t even simply swipe a game card and open the door, and that’s my point, diabetes is, inevitably, invisible.

But here is the thing about diabetes, although diabetes may be invisible to outsiders, what is not invisible is how much it takes to be a diabetic. It takes consistency, responsibility, courage, passion, and a lot of faith. For me, these qualities, are the colors that bring diabetic patients to life. So maybe diabetes is invisible to those who do not know someone who is effected, but the kids, teenagers, and adults who have diabetes, are filled with vibrant colors.