We’re coming up on my daughter’s third “diaversary.”

Yes, this is apparently a thing.

On July 21, 2017, she was diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes.

And she’s doing great.

In fact, in the diabetic parlance, she’s kind of a “diabadass.”

Before she became a certified member of the club, she displayed all the classic symptoms, all of them—increased thirst, weight loss, blurred vision, lethargy, just to name a few.

At the time, I happened to know what the classic symptoms are.

But I steadily denied them.

For approximately eight straight weeks.

Eight long weeks.

All the while, she continued to get skinnier and thirstier and more tired and more unfocused. and weaker.

Finally, her tongue turned a bright shade of yellow from the hyperglycemia.

When I couldn’t scrape the hue off with a paper towel, I agreed that we should go to the pediatrician.

Once we were inside the office, she stepped on the scale. It showed that she had lost 20 pounds in about six months. She didn’t have 20 pounds to lose. But while she was losing them, I convinced myself that she had just gotten tall.

Two weeks earlier, we had been to the eye doctor because suddenly, her eyesight had significantly diminished.

“She thinks she’s diabetic,” I laughed to the ophthalmologist.

“Her eyes look healthy,” he told me.

At the pediatrician’s office, after my 17-year-old daughter stepped off the scale, the doctor looked at the digital reading and she looked at me.

“You think she’s diabetic,” I said.

“I know she is,” she replied.

Within five minutes, a blood sugar reading of 476 confirmed it.

And so. we were off in an ambulance to Cleveland Clinic’s main campus, where we would spend the next three days avoiding the ICU and getting her stabilized and accustomed to a whole new life routine.

Before we showed up at the doctor’s office, my girl was so thirsty that she had consumed two gallons of water in one day, and she still felt parched.

I just kept filling her glass.

No matter what kind of denial I was in, I now had a kid with a chronic immune illness.

I cannot fix it.

And it’s not even my body to fix.

It’s hers.

She’s doing just fine now, thanks.

The insane amount of work that it takes to manage Type 1 Diabetes blows my mind.

Constant blood sugar checks.

Regular deliveries of insulin vials.

Carbohydrate calculations every single time you put a bite of food into your mouth.

Waking up to the sound of glucose monitors that detect dips or spikes.

Moving insulin infusion pump sites to new spots on your stomach and your legs and your backside every three days.

For the rest of your life.

Every day, every single one of us comes into contact with people who are immunocompromised.

One of those people lives in my house.

And she’s only 20 years old.

This summer, she got a babysitting gig.

Three days a week, she’s the caretaker and activity director and fun provider for a little seven-year-old girl who has the same shade of red hair that my girl wears like a crown.

This little seven-year-old also is diabetic. My daughter is the first non-family member who her mom and dad have trusted to watch over her.

The two of them have the best time together. When they met, it was love at first sight.

Before they go out to embrace the day and all of its opportunities, my daughter fixes her charge’s hair in the same style as her own—because they both get a kick out of being on hikes and having strangers ask them if they are twins.

Those girls are going to be ok.

In fact, they’ll be better than ok.

They have supportive networks, access to insurance, outstanding healthcare, engaged family members, access to good foods and resources, and all the stereotypical sassiness that comes from their fiery red manes.

But understand that girls who appear as invincible as these two are all around you.

When you decide that it’s not a big deal to go out without wearing a mask in the midst of a global pandemic or host a party or go to a bar or hang out with your pals on the beach and you get right up close and personal with everybody because all the people you know are “healthy,” maybe you should take a beat and reconsider.

I tried to will my kid into being healthy.

I thought that if I could just pretend her symptoms weren’t real, they wouldn’t be.

But that’s not how life works.

You might be healthy today. You might decide that the people you see in your daily travels are immune to the most terrible effects of this virus because they don’t appear to your eyes to be compromised in any way.

If this is the case and you are walking around flouting the scientific advice to maintain proper social distance and wear a mask, please reconsider your choices.

Because in your travels you just might come across a pair of cute and bubbly redheads who really need you to care about someone other than yourself.