How’s he doing with his diabetes? This always seems like an odd question to me. I don’t know if I would ask it in the same way when talking about other chronic illnesses. Let’s try it out. How’s he doing with his heart disease? Wow, sounds weird. How’s he doing with his liver disease? Wow, that sounds even worse.
Because of the magnitude of this question, and the even greater depth of an appropriate answer, the bearer of this question is always met with the deer in the headlights look.
I immediately being to wonder if I should explain that my son does really well with his diabetes, especially when his sugar is too low. He is an expert at knowing that he needs to eat sugar or candy when his blood sugar drops so quickly that he is shaky from head to toe.
Or should I say that he does really well with his diabetes when he having the most fun with other kids. Especially when he has to stop and test himself right in the middle of an awesome Marco Polo game because his mama told him it was time to test…again.
Maybe I should explain that he does really well when his sugar is at it’s highest. He knows exactly where the bathroom is, and doesn’t complain when he has to use it 3 times in an hour as his body expels the excess sugar. He also handles the skull splitting headaches that accompany the high sugar. He’s a trooper.
Or, I could talk about how well he handles his diabetes when we are eating a meal. He waits at every single meal before putting a morsel in his mouth, while he waits to have his sugar checked (or checks his own sugar) and to have his food weighed.
He is 6 years old. He gets his sugar checked 10-12 times through both day and night. He wear a piece of equipment, his pump, that is portable life support. Without it he would die. He counts every carb that enters his body and covers it with insulin to remain healthy. He carries sugar to combat lows, and he wears a medical alert bracelet. I want to scream, “Yes he handles it well, better than most people I know!” But I do not yell that, or anything else for that matter, I just smile.
I smile and say, ‘He’s doing just fine, thanks for asking.” And that’s the truth. He is doing just fine. And I do appreciate people asking.