Month: July 2009

A great deal of taking care of child with Type 1 diabetes is following your intuition. Your intuition gets honed when you are familiar with the child’s personality quirks and idiosyncrasies.

Now, getting to know my son was a non issue for me. We were inseparable until I sent him to preschool when he was four. The three of us, my son, my daughter and myself, we are three peas on a pod. Of course, their dad is always welcome in our pod, but most days it is just the three of us while daddy is at work.

So recognizing when my son was a little off when his blood sugar was too high or too low came rather easy for me. I would be able to tell in an instant when his sugar was not level because he would either be whiny or mean, two traits of his personality that are rarely seen.

This skill came in handy when it came to protecting my feelings over the last two years. I will never forget (no matter how hard I try) the Valentine’s Day that he came out of preschool with the angriest look I had ever seen on his beautiful face. He reluctantly walked behind me to the truck and when I gently broached the subject and asked how his day was, he replied, “I hate you.”

I knew in an instant something wasn’t right. This was not my little boy. I quickly grabbed his blood glucose meter and tested his angry little finger, and it registered over 500. A little too many carbs at his Valentine’s Day party and not enough insulin to go with them.

While getting to know my son is not an issue for me, it poses a bit of a concern when we are talking about a new school year. New school year means all new people that do not know my son. Now I know every mother says this, but my little boy is awesome. He is sweet, gentle, kind, respectful, friendly and loving…most days. He creates and builds from any piece of cardboard he can find. He has his six year old moments when he gets a little kooky like other boys, and then there are the high sugar and low sugar moments. Those are the moments I worry about when it comes to school.

Any teacher that my son gets will have to get to know him very quickly. We can’t wait for November for his teacher figure out that he normally does not cry unless there is a really good reason. We need her (or him) to know that my son has an even disposition and only cries when someone really hurts him, or he his blood sugar is low.

We need his teacher to know that my son is normally even keeled. We can’t wait until October and 10 trips to the Principal’s office for the teacher to realize my son is a gentle boy and aggression is usually attributed to high blood sugars.

Any teacher that my son gets is going to have to be a quick study…on his personality. I know this is a tremendous task for any teacher to fulfill, but he is my son, and I expect nothing less. I only hope his teacher feels the same way.

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.

When you are a mom of a child with Type 1 diabetes all you have to do is meet another mom of a child with Type 1 diabetes and you instantly know, “She gets me.”

We live in a pretty large town. In our town there are several children living with Type 1 diabetes. I do not know them all, but I do know the two other boys that go to the same pool as us in the summer. I am friendly with the moms, but it is more than that. We share something that no other moms at that pool share. We are moms of boys with Type 1 diabetes, and we get each other.

We don’t sit together. We don’t eat lunch together. Our boys run in different circles. Some days we say hello, and some days it’s only a nod in the distance. But however great or small the communication is on any particular day, we all know the strong connection is still there.

As I walked into the pool this morning, children, towels, beach chair, cooler, meals, and snacks in tow, one of the other moms looked at me and yelled, “We just hit 38.” That’s it. Just three words and a number and my heart sank. I knew exactly what she meant and exactly how her mind was reeling thinking about the rest of her son’s day.

Not many people would understand, “We just hit 38.” If I yelled that out in Shop Rite people would surely begin whispering behind my back (more than they do already). And all this mom had to do was look at me and say these words and I knew.

I know because I live it. She didn’t have to explain that was a blood glucose number. A very dangerous glucose number at that. She didn’t have to explain that she was petrified that the glucose number wouldn’t stabilize and he would begin to have a seizure. She didn’t have to explain that with all the swimming and exercise from camp his numbers have been running on the lower side. She didn’t have to explain that he was eating Oreo cookies to treat the low and hopefully make him feel well enough to go on to camp for the day. She didn’t have to explain one single thing to me. I know it all because I live it.

When I go running to tend to my six year old for whatever reason, her eyes meet mine on the way back to my umbrella. She is checking to make sure everything is okay…really okay. Not in the same way that the other moms do either.

She is thinking if my son’s sugar is stable. She is thinking if my son’s pump is working properly. She is wondering if my son went too low where he needed assistance. She is thinking all the same things she thinks when she tends to her 10 year old son. She gets me. I don’t have to explain one single thing to her. She gets me. She knows it all. She lives it too.

Type 1 diabetes is a disgusting, annoying, terrible chronic illness that our son’s have to live with day in and day out. It is nice to know that just a few umbrellas down from mine there is someone else who knows exactly how I am feeling, without me uttering a single word.