Justify.

One thing is for sure when it comes to dealing with Type 1 diabetes there are many right ways to treat this disease. Of course, every single solitary person living with Type 1 diabetes has to take insulin to stay alive, no matter what bull they give you, but the nitty gritty of the day to day decisions on how to stay healthy are very individualized.

I know many people whose children have Type 1 diabetes. I met most of them through the website www.Type1parents.org. It is a forum where parents of children with Type 1 diabetes and adults living with Type 1 diabetes can go to discuss, well, really anything, but mostly diabetes related questions. And I can honestly say when a question is asked as many as the number of people that respond there will be that many different answers,  all with different solutions that work.

With all of this individuality there comes lots of justification. Justifying from a parenting perspective is hard to do. Parents don’t like to justify choices such as bedtimes, punishment tactics, or homework routine. We think we are doing what is best for our children and that should be enough. Well the same goes for caring for a child with Type 1 diabetes, but it’s not that simple.

Every 3 months we have to see our pediatric endocrinologist. And every 3 months, in a very caring and professional way that endo will go over our blood glucose charts, our pump setting, our insulin usage and discuss our choices. Essentially having us justify our decisions over the past 3 months. Now this is not meant to put parents on the spot, but in essence it does. And it stings. Like salt in a wound.

Every day when I lay my head down to sleep I know in my heart and soul that I have done every single thing that I could have done to make all the right choices when it comes to my son and his diabetes. Not that every decision I made was the right one, but every decision was thought upon and deliberately decided in the best interest of my son. Mistakes are made, and then the following day I attack each situation with lessons learned from previous days. The more I know the more I owe. The more I know about diabetes, the more I owe it to my son to make the most intelligent, informed decisions based on his care every second of every day.

Justify, so be it. But rest assured whether all my decisions were right or not, they were done with only the best intentions. The best intention of keeping my son happy, healthy and alive. Not a second goes by where I don’t try my absolute hardest to succeed. So far so good.

Justify.

One thing is for sure when it comes to dealing with Type 1 diabetes there are many right ways to treat this disease. Of course, every single solitary person living with Type 1 diabetes has to take insulin to stay alive, no matter what bull they give you, but the nitty gritty of the day to day decisions on how to stay healthy are very individualized.

I know many people whose children have Type 1 diabetes. I met most of them through the website www.Type1parents.org. It is a forum where parents of children with Type 1 diabetes and adults living with Type 1 diabetes can go to discuss, well, really anything, but mostly diabetes related questions. And I can honestly say when a question is asked as many as the number of people that respond there will be that many different answers,  all with different solutions that work.

With all of this individuality there comes lots of justification. Justifying from a parenting perspective is hard to do. Parents don’t like to justify choices such as bedtimes, punishment tactics, or homework routine. We think we are doing what is best for our children and that should be enough. Well the same goes for caring for a child with Type 1 diabetes, but it’s not that simple.

Every 3 months we have to see our pediatric endocrinologist. And every 3 months, in a very caring and professional way that endo will go over our blood glucose charts, our pump setting, our insulin usage and discuss our choices. Essentially having us justify our decisions over the past 3 months. Now this is not meant to put parents on the spot, but in essence it does. And it stings. Like salt in a wound.

Every day when I lay my head down to sleep I know in my heart and soul that I have done every single thing that I could have done to make all the right choices when it comes to my son and his diabetes. Not that every decision I made was the right one, but every decision was thought upon and deliberately decided in the best interest of my son. Mistakes are made, and then the following day I attack each situation with lessons learned from previous days. The more I know the more I owe. The more I know about diabetes, the more I owe it to my son to make the most intelligent, informed decisions based on his care every second of every day.

Justify, so be it. But rest assured whether all my decisions were right or not, they were done with only the best intentions. The best intention of keeping my son happy, healthy and alive. Not a second goes by where I don’t try my absolute hardest to succeed. So far so good.