The school was there to figure out a way to help my daughter embrace pumping without having to leave the classroom to go to the nurse a bunch of times a day. Together we eventually came up with a plan that worked, but it didn’t happen overnight. It took time, and it also required me to understand the school’s needs, point of view and accept how they might need to come up short of what my expectations at home would be.
Tag: Children
No hospital pictures, ever. When someone is sick and in the hospital, they are vulnerable and unhappy. I don’t want to be exploited like that – especially not for the sake of advocacy.
Many parents feel at a loss as to how to be effective parents around diabetes stuff if they’ve never heard a healthcare professional tell them that it’s okay to be parents around diabetes in the same way that they’ve parented in every other area.
D-Mom Kim Savage embraced raising her young son with Type 1 diabetes while going full on chasing her dream, too. Now, her son with diabetes is a teenager and her career is on the brink of superstardom thanks to a three book deal with the prestigious publishing group of Farrar, Straus & Giroux/Macmillan.
I watched a controversial video documentary on The New York Times’s web site, Midnight Three & Six, about a family pummeled by life with their fifteen-year-old daughter Grace’s volatile type 1 diabetes. One parent or another gets up to check Grace every three hours at night, to make sure she doesn’t die in her sleep. “Every three hours keeps her safe,” says Grace’s mother.
My son was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes two Septembers ago. Our story’s probably a lot like other ones you hear: there was a frantic trip to a hospital, a period of shock—He has what?—followed by the anger, then mourning that comes with realizing your child is completely dependent on a drug for survival and will forever cope with a condition that requires round-the-clock maintenance—maintenance that comes with never-ending ups and downs.
This one is for the outside world, the people watching us try to master this parenting a child with diabetes life, because I’ve noticed that you’re avoiding me sometimes. And other times you say things with the best of intentions that just… set me off.
So here it is, my guide to help you. Instead of saying what not to say to the parent of a child with diabetes, I offer you what yes to say. I hope it helps you. I know it will help me.
The psychologist continued to report what Finn had told her as he leaned against me with his face buried against my shoulder. She had asked him, Are you thinking of hurting yourself? (He said yes.) How? (He reported that he wanted to bash his head in with a baseball bat.) How likely are you to do it, on a scale from zero/not really going to, to ten/absolutely certain? (He’d rated the likelihood a seven.) I was floored. But I was not horrified, because I didn’t believe he could really be thinking any of those things.
Diabetes is so new, and the pain of it coming into our lives is still fresh. The sleepless nights are the only thing that’s consistent. I hate the feeling of running on fumes. If I don’t stay healthy, I can’t make sure you stay healthy. I am trying to put things in place to make sure that you do.
Most kids love Halloween. Can you blame them? It's a holiday loaded with creepy crawly things, costumes, parties, and of course, candy. I recall the trick-or-treating loot my brother and I brought home in our childhood. We always had enough candy to last for months. We didn't usually keep all of the candy, but one year my brother outsmarted everyone and hid some in his desk drawer.