Diabetic "Sucess"?

I know what I consider being successful at this disease. Reaching say, 80 or 90 without getting any of those nasty complications will definitely be a success. That's my ultimate goal.

The problem with this goal is that the only signs of success are the lack of signs of failure. I know my A1C's have been good, so I assume that I'm on the right track. So far I'm able to keep my sugars in control with the combination of diet and exercise and medication I'm on now. I don't have any diabetic complications.

But I wish I could go in to the doctors and find out that I've sustained the same amount of beta cells, or that my nerves are free of damage or see my level of insulin resistance go down. I'd like some way to guarantee that I'm holding my own.

I come out of each A1C feeling like I've gotten a report card: really good at measuring past performance, but still no guarantee of the future. Just because I have an A this term doesn't mean I'm not going to flunk out next year.

I wonder if I'm going to go to the doctors one day, and they'll do some tests on my eyes or nerves and give me bad news. Even if I feel like I'm more or less doing everything right, there's always that push to try and do better, just in case some silent damage going on in the background. Something that I won't know about until it's too late to reverse it.

I know there are no guarantees of the future, but that blindfolded feeling is one of the things that scares me the most.