It has been almost 2 and 1/2 years since the uninvited guest of Type 1 diabetes came into our home. It came, unpacked, and essentially invaded every nook and cranny of our home. It is rude, obnoxious, pushy, insensitive, and intrusive. The worse kind of guest ever, and I have to say in these 2 and 1/2 years it has not gotten any easier to deal with this guest.
Not in the ‘woe is me’ kind of way. We are past that. Sure I mourn for my son that he has to deal with Type 1 diabetes every day of his little life, but we do not pity ourselves for dealing with it, we just deal. The part that doesn’t get any easier is the day to day dealings that no matter how much you wish them away will never be gone.
Every day my son has to check his sugar over 10 times a day. In 2 and 1/2 years that is over 9,000 finger pricks. 9,000! For the first 8 months of having Type 1 diabetes my son had to have between 4 and 10 shots of insulin a day depending on the foods he ate and the range of his glucose numbers. After the shots, we switched to an insulin pump, so for almost 2 years we have changed his insulin pump site every 2 days. Every 2 days for almost 2 years we changed his site which works out to be about 365 site changes. 365!
Dealing with Type 1 diabetes doesn’t get any easier because it is relentless in it’s attempt to cause as much unrest as possible. Not a finger check and blood glucose number goes by without me thinking of which plan of action is necessary. Some checks nothing may need to be done, but I still have to quickly evaluate that number and determine if it is in range. It is constant thinking, evaluating, adjusting and checking.
It doesn’t get any easier because Type 1 diabetes is different every day. If my son eats the same breakfast every day for 7 days there is a good bet that his numbers will still be different after each meal because of outside sources such as weather, illness, growth, stress, equipment malfunction or whatever.
It is like living in the movie Groundhog Day with Bill Murray. We wake up we deal with Type 1 diabetes. It never goes away and it never gives us a break. We cannot go an entire day without testing my son’s sugar. We cannot go an entire day without counting carbs or giving insulin. He would die if we did that. Literally.
That is why living with Type 1 diabetes doesn’t get any easier. There is no time to take a break. There is no reprieve from the glucose checks, the carb counting, the dosing of insulin. It gets worse over time because you want to forget about it for a while and you just can’t. Diabetes vacations with us, celebrates holidays with us, gets one year older with us on birthdays, joins us when we are sick, and follows us to school. Too bad Type 1 diabetes isn’t good luck, we would all love to have such good luck following us around all the time.
I know many people that have lived successfully with Type 1 diabetes for over 37 years, and I know that my son lives a very full life with it too. But I do also know that my son would give anything to just eat a meal without checking his blood glucose first or dosing insulin. Or go out to gym class without having an extra snack to avoid going too low. Or sleep through the night without any finger checks. Or go to school without worrying who will help him if he goes low and cannot take care of it himself.
Diabetes never takes a break, so therefore neither can he.