Rufus the bear

When my daughter came down with type 1 diabetes she got Rufus the bear as a present that came inside the Bag of hope, that was delivered to us by one of the diabetes educators when we were at the hospital. Diabetes educators are the angels that within all that emotional chaos, show up, return the control back to your hands as much as possible and remind you that, although it might seem otherwise, this is not the end of the world and that life are still waiting for all of you outside, right when you step out of the hospital door. She taught us how to monitor blood sugar, how to count carbohydrates from food, how to give insulin injections, how to calculate insulin doses and also a little bit about how to keep our sanity within all that mess. I remember that my first thought was that our kids are not protected anymore, deep inside I always believed that kids are protected, that everything has to turn out just fine, because they are kids. All of a sudden this bubble did not exist anymore. I was scared, I was terrified, mainly from the uncertainty of what future holds. Rufus the bear came in a big box. It had colorful patches on his arms, legs, belly and buttocks, to mark for all of those areas that can be used for insulin injections. It also had two patches on it's paws, which are the spots used to check blood sugar. My daughter unwrapped the cute bear. The diabetes educator explained that this bear has diabetes too and that she can take care of it and also learn how to take care of herself. My daughter practiced some insulin injections on the bear and checked it's fake blood sugar level. Then she played with it for a while and put it to sleep. A nurse came in with some DVDs for her to watch and she happily switched to watching TV. Seemed like she was taking it all much better than we did. The next day the diabetic educator came to check on her. "How is Rufus doing?" she asked my daughter. "Are you taking good care of him?"
"Oh, I cured him from his diabetes" my daughter answered. "it is enough trouble to take care of me, I don't need another bear with diabetes to worry about". That was one lucky bear.