FEAR
I now know a new kind of fear. The fear that comes with worrying you'll give him the wrong amount of insulin. Worried you'll get his long acting and short acting insulin mixed up. Worried you'll sleep through your alarm at midnight or at 3am when you need to get up and check his sugar. Worried that you'll screw up and your child will end up unconscious, in a diabetic coma, or worse. That's REAL FEAR! His other health issues, though severe and potentially life threatening, wasn't like this. This is something we have to manage every second of every day. We don't, he could end up in serious condition!
Yes, I'm terrified. I'm overwhelmed. I'm scared to death!
My son has Type 1 Juvenile Diabetes. And I am SCARED.
We left the hospital with lots of fanfare. All the nurses, childlife advocates, diabetic educators and the rest cheering him on. They all assured me that he would do fine. They were proud of his accomplishments and said that he picked it all up really quick. They showed me phenomenal support as we prepared to leave the hospital. Keeg of course wanted to finish his level on the PS2 game he was playing in the teen room. ;-)
We went to pick up his prescriptions at the pharamacy. Apparently insurance doesn't believe he needs to check his sugar or give himself insulin as often as he does. So, we'll have to get new scripts in 10 days and get more. Another aggravation I could do without....having to run to the pharmacy every 10 days to get lancets and test strips. *sigh
I realized as I was leaving the pharmacy that his insulin has to go in the fridge. Since I knew I wouldn't be back for several hours, I had to go back to the house to drop off his insulin. Then we headed to town.
As we were headed to town, he reminded me it was snack time. We stopped by a store and spent a good 40 minutes figuring out what snack he could eat that would fit in his 15 grams of carb, but actually fill him up.
Finally we were actually on our way to town to run errands. Two hours later it was dinner time and I was stumped. Where to go eat that we could easily count carbs and fill him up. Granted, we have his huge carb book, but filling him up is important as well. Someone told us that Taco Bell had a carb menu. So, we went to Taco Bell. Where we spent a good half our figuring out how to feed keeg within his carb levels and still fill him up. The girl at the register, trying to be useful, would make suggestions that she knew dieters chose, but they all had higher carb levels. We finally ordered and sat down to figure out sugar levels and insulin.
Which is when I discovered................. I'm not the only one that gets squirmish when seeing a needle go into skin. People around us, when we got ready to give insulin, walked away or averted their gaze! One man went pale!
Now keep in mind, we are not talking about old school syringe. Keeg uses a pen that looks like the photo below to administer his insulin. The needle is super small... looks tiny like an acupuncture needle. Yet, the effect seems to be the same.
I am certain at some point in time I will be told that I don't need to administer insulin publicly. I can already see it coming from some well intentioned friend or family member. Yet, I have always taught my children to embrace who they are and what they must do. Both my boys are open about their being on the Autism spectrum. Keeg has always been open about his health issues. I am open about my past experiences and my own health issues. I will never teach them to hide it, to be ashamed or embarrassed of it. Keeg has diabetes. This is his LIFE. It will never go away, it will never get better. I have hopes a cure will be found, but until then this is his reality. We won't hide it away to make others feel better anymore than we hide away that Keeg has Asperger Syndrome. These things do not define who they are, but he does embrace them as a part of who he is. Diabetes is no different.
I am headed to a store today to find low carb snacks that are filling. To pick up glucose tablets and alcohol swabs. To figure out all that we need now just to survive.
Keeg's sugars finally hit a normal range at midnight last night. We were so excited! A normal blood sugar!!! At 3am his sugar was 92 and I suddenly realized.... we didn't go through low sugar at the hospital. 92 is good, but anything below 80 is not good! I started running through all that I knew to do if it dropped lower. This morning and today his sugar has remained in the normal range. I'm excited but know that maintaining a "perfect" sugar level in diabetes is difficult. The slightest thing could cause it to go high..... stress, over exertion, forgetting to count carbs or counting them incorrectly.
The doc said their is a "honeymoon" stage where sugars stay so level that you start to think maybe you don't really need the insulin. Maybe this is the beginning of that stage. It doesn't last, but it sure would be a nice break right now.
Keeg will be posting soon about how he feels. He's been a bit to overwhelmed to put it into words and I respect that. He wants to tell the world how he feels though, and when he does I expect that each of you that read this blog will take a moment to comment on his post.
My son has Type 1 Juvenile Diabetes. He is strong, determined, intelligent, scared, hopeful, overwhelmed and one of the greatest loves of my life.
Keegan, if you read this.......... I AM SO FLIPPING PROUD OF YOU!
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