When my eleven month old niece, Ella, was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes, I was equal parts stunned, angry, and sad. My sister (Ella’s mother) and I both have Type 1 diabetes, but Ella’s diagnosis still came as a shocking blow.
Category: Personal
Which brings me to the olden days of diabetes. Back when we had to walk barefoot both ways uphill in snow to get our NPH and Regular. Back when pumps clicked and meters took a lot of blood and a good long time to count down.
For 19 years, my focus and goal as the mother of a child with diabetes had been survival. And in life with diabetes, that meant developing a new level of acceptance. It meant looking at the strange and challenging daily situations as normal.
My experience babysitting Noah not only taught me new things about managing my own care, but it also gave me a newfound respect for the parents of children with diabetes (including my own).
Dex Share meant that—if our entire family was home and our son went high or low—two cell phones and the Dex receiver would sound their alarms, sparking red alerts from every room. If that was contributing to my anxiety, what was it doing to my seven-year-old son?
I woke up the next day to a new life. My face was a mess. My body was cracked and broken and bruised and hurt. But my heart... I don’t know how to explain it except to say that it was pouring rain outside my hospital window, but the sky had never looked more beautiful.
Diabetes is learning to be careful about googling your disease.
Diabetes is hearing about other people's fear of needles. And love of desserts. And hemp seed treatments. And footless, blind diabetic great aunts.
For me time stopped on February 3, 2010 when my 13 year old son, Jesse, suddenly passed away due to type 1 diabetes. So instead of being a 19 year old young man today, he is still 13, alive only in our minds and our hearts. I wonder frequently who my son would be today – who I would be today – if he were still here.
I don’t feel better or worse about having diabetes because, collectively, we’re making a lot of noise this month, and I don’t know if we’re getting through to anyone who doesn’t already know and care about diabetes. But the more I think about it, the more I begin to understand what these awareness months are really about.
Since like underwear, an insulin pump is constantly worn close to the body, Isherwood believes the way it looks, feels and is carried should reflect its intimate nature. "It's my belief that pump accessories should be more at home in an underwear drawer than a medicine cabinet," she says.