Pancreas-Aids (and Other Acts of Parental Brilliance)

My husband has taken to calling diabetes itself “Pancreas-Aids.”

I know — absolutely dreadful. The first time he said it I just stared at him, caught somewhere between laughter and outrage. But that’s the thing about dark humour: it sneaks in where exhaustion lives. It’s a ridiculous name for a relentless condition, and somehow that ridiculousness helps. It gives us permission to laugh at something we can’t cure.

He says it with that straight-faced, dad-joke sincerity that makes everyone else groan, and I roll my eyes on cue. Still, it’s sort of perfect, isn’t it? A clunky, slightly shocking nickname for a clunky, slightly shocking reality — the fact that diabetes lives with us every single day whether we like it or not.

Humour has become our default coping mechanism. It’s either that or cry — and crying ruins mascara. Between my “Ambulance Bag Threat” (yes, I may have promised to storm the school with a giant emergency bag if lunchtime injections keep getting skipped) and his “Pancreas-Aids” commentary, we’ve developed our own strange family shorthand.

It’s the language of lightness — our way of acknowledging the alarms, the numbers, the constant calculations, without letting the condition swallow the whole mood of the house. Because sometimes humour isn’t denial — it’s defiance.

What I’ve realised is that these jokes, however cringe-worthy, are really little love notes in disguise. They say, we see it, we’re in it, and we can still laugh.

Diabetes might live quietly in the background of our days, but it doesn’t get to take the humour, the warmth, or the family nonsense that makes those days ours.

So yes — I’ll keep rolling my eyes at Pancreas-Aids, and he’ll keep pretending it’s the cleverest thing ever said. Somewhere between the laughter and the eye-rolls, we keep finding our balance — one injection, one dad joke, and one deep breath at a time.