Type 3 Diabetes

Several weeks ago my family and I attended the JDRF's Type 1 Diabetes Research Summit, that's when I learned for the first time about type 3 diabetes. The kids were having a blast in the other room at the kids program so we were free to attend the adults program. Dr. Desmond Schatz, the medical director of the Diabetes Research Center at University of Florida, and an engaging speaker went up to speak. "how many of you have type 1 diabetes?" he asked and counted the number of hands raised. "How many type 2s?" less hands compared with the first question but still quite a few. Then he asked:" how many people in the audience have type 3 diabetes?" There was one hand in the air but mainly silence in the crowd. All the rest of us just looked at each other wondering what he was talking about and whether there was a new kind of diabetes that we (how could that be? We read every single piece of literature, scientific or not, the minute it's published) haven't heard about... I did remember reading something about deficiency of insulin in brain but somehow I realized this was not what he was trying to direct the talk too. Then he smiled "type 3 diabetes is what those who care for someone with diabetes have" he stated. Parents, siblings, spouses, grandparents, children, even caretakers and the list is very long, we are all affected by diabetes, we all suffer from the same thing, we share the same worries and fears and coming to think about it, we all share the same dream, we all long for the cure. So what I have been suffering from in the last 3 years has a name and definition, maybe not formally but it fits. One thing I can say for sure, the cure for type 1 diabetes will magically cure us too.