D-Blog Day! “6 Things I Want You To Know About Diabetes”

Apparently, today is D-Blog Day and the topic is “6 Things I Want You To Know About Diabetes”. I should probably skip the assignment given the time of night, but I'm going to at least get started:

1. I appreciate our support group! Thank you to friends who came out and walked with Andrew at the JDRF walk and/or gave toward finding a cure!!! I wish I knew how to tell you how much that means to us. You don't have to say or do anything special. You've been there, listened, encouraged, and prayed for us! I can't thank you enough!

2. He CAN eat that! A carb is a carb is a carb. Your grandmother with type 2 may limit her carb intake to manage her diabetes. My son gets deathly ill without insulin in his sleep even without eating and will still need insulin if he only eats salad for lunch. Yes, some foods are easier to match to insulin action than others. Candy by itself is only for lows. Candy can be worked in with a meal okay. My mother gave me a book on curing diabetes with diet soon after Andrew was diagnosed. It promised that if he ate almost nothing & drank green juice (even I didn't recognize the ingredients) that he might be cured. Most of the type 2's were off their medication & some of the type 1's. Most of the type 1's used half to a third of the insulin they used before. It induced a lot of guilt at first. Sounds great right? Well, it may be for type 2's. For a growing child, our nutritionist thought it was dangerous. If you don't allow many carbs, of course your insulin needs will go down. That's not a cure, it's arithmetic & a carb ratio. My son is also a growing child. The nutritionist said that by restricting his carbs, we were masking his true insulin needs & not allowing him to freely chose what his body needs as he grows. She wants him on a normal diet treated with insulin. He can even have treats if he learns how to incorporate them into his diet, bolus correctly for them, etc. So, again, YES, he can eat that!

3. It's not that bad. Where there is a will there is a way. Andrew will do everything that he wants to do. If you want to invite him over, don't be afraid, we will find a way to safely make it happen. He's fairly responsible & will check his blood sugar & call me as needed. I can make it easy on you and you don't have to be a nurse. He's still a normal kid and wants to do normal kid things.

4. Okay, it really is that bad. So, yes, Andrew can do anything he wants to do - as long as he has a safety plan. Low blood sugars are scarier than I have the energy to write about tonight. I have heard and read so many new stories lately. He can't go anywhere without sugar, glucagon, juice,... just in case. Andrew is a trooper. He sticks his finger countless times a day, measures every morsel he eats, wears an insulin port to deliver insulin that has to be changed every few days, also wears a CGM sensor, has to carry all this junk around with him even to play in the front yard just to stay alive. I'm stronger now than at first, but I still worry about him. Last night, when I checked on him at 2 am, Dex said "LOW, BG under 55". BG confirmed he was 57. The graph showed he had been low for over an hour and at one point had been much lower than the 57. Last night could have easily been the night he had his first seizure, or we could have even lost him. Thankfully, by the grace of God, he is still here to face another day. His face changes as his blood sugar changes and I can see the war that this disease plays within his body. I still hate this disease and the threat it poses to him every day. So, yes, it is that bad.

5. Insulin isn't a cure; it's life support. He will never get well or outgrow the disease. He will inject or wear a pump & infuse insulin all of his life or grow deathly ill...FAST!!! Even with good control, complications still come. Please pray against complications for Andrew!

6. Type 1 Diabetes gets managed, but never controlled. It varies, and it always will. Ask anyone living with the disease and you can eat the same thing, follow the same schedule, take the same insulin, and still get dramatically different blood sugars. There will always be highs and lows. 75% of numbers in range is clinically considered great control. We're not even close. So, yes. He's still fluctuating. I know you mean well and are trying to show you care, but I don't like being asked if his numbers are stable yet. The answer is and will always be No. Stable is a myth. We haven't failed and it isn't that we aren't working hard. You see, it's his pancreas that failed. It is a wonderful, God-given and created organ that is so complex that I stink at being a pancreas.