I am a mom of a diabetic. My son has lived with Type 1 diabetes since he was 10 years old. (Diagnosed on April 13, 2006) A date I will never forget. There were so many children being diagnosed with a very adult disease at that time with no signs of stopping. I believe the stats were around 600 newly diagnosed cases per year. My son was not the youngest, but it was our new normal from that day forward.
I went through so much with this disease. It was long before blogs and support. The hospital would try and hook you up with a family who had been through it just before you. Other than that, you were left with the hospital staff (who are amazing) and your own support network (who have no idea of what you are going through) to get you through all of ‘this’. By ‘this’, I mean finding out, working it out, living with and going through Type 1 diabetes.
There were times I thought I would never get through. There are days I really needed a break…but I knew that my son was not getting that break…I WAS his support. You don’t want to let him know how incredibly scared or worried you are for his future, or what new challenges are coming his way as a result of this new diagnosis.
Then there is the ‘blame game’ – we all play it. You check through out the family history. His side (your baby daddy) and mine. You want to know where this came from. You want someone or something to blame…truth is – they have no idea what happens to the pancreas – it just slowly stops working and needles replace the working pancreas. Wow!
Our lives spin on a dime, we are in classes at the hospital and meetings with teachers and other support workers to see that they understand how to look after my son and his disease when you cannot be there with him. You stay awake every single night…in fact in the early days I wanted to sleep on the floor of his bedroom to check on him. You will only drive yourself nuts over this if you don’t get a grip of what just happened here.
This blog is trying to reach back to those who are going through this or about to. I want you to know everything will work out. These are my stories and how I handled them, the support I had received and the problems I overcame to help my son (and myself) look after this very adult disease.