Confessions

Confessions from the mother of a Type 1 Diabetic

5 years and 7 months ago my then two and a half year old daughter Aly was diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes. When my daughter my diagnosed on January 20, 2007 our lives as a family changed and my role as a young mother (I was 22 when she was diagnosed) were changed forever.

My 1st confession is that I felt guilty, I felt that I had done something wrong during pregnancy or the first few years of her life to cause my daughter to have this lifelong disease. 

4 years and 9 months ago my then 3 year old daughter was diagnosed with Reactive Airway Disease, this is a form of asthma. 

My 2nd confession is that by this point I was not quite 23 and I was sure even though everyone told me I did nothing to cause either one of these diseases I again felt very guilty and like a bad mom. I must be doing something wrong, right for my child to now be diagnosed with 2, not 1 but 2 diseases by the age of 3. 

When Aly had just turned 5 (she was premature so she had made the deadline with her birthdate but would not have if she was born on time) we put her in Kindergarten, she did ok through the year but not great academically, by the end of the school year we had decided that she was going to need to repeat Kindergarten to help her catch up to where she needed to be

My 3rd confession is that again in this situation I felt that I forced my daughter to work too hard and that I signed her up for school too early and felt like a bad mom. I should have known that she wasn't quite ready but obviously I didn't. She redid Kindergarten and did awesome.

My 4th confession is that I try to please everyone all the time and I am finally realizing that I can't. I cannot please everyone all the time because you can't ever please everyone, it is just doesn't happen. Someone is always going to be upset, disturbed, whatever by something that you say. It is just how the world works

My 5th confession is that I live for diabetes education. I may not understand all the clinical side of it at this point, nor may I ever since I am not in the medical field but I LOVE educating people about diabetes, both Type 1 and Type 2. Diabetes affects 200 million people worldwide and I want to educate the general public about this disease. I hope someday I can be out there giving lectures and classes and support to the general public as well as individuals/families dealing with Type 1 Diabetes.

My 6th confession is that I would die for my children. I want to protect them in every way possible and God forbid an instance ever came about I would rather die myself and save my children then ever lose a child.

My 7th confession is that I am me, I am who I am and I will not change. No matter how much you nag, complain, whatever. I am who I am and I like myself. The negative Nancy's out there won't break me. I am strong willed, caring, dedicated, passionate, truthful, interpersonal, and most importantly I am ME!

My 8th confession is that the Diabetes Online Community is my obsession, I think about the DOC all the time and how I personally can help others in the DOC that are like myself, affected by Type 1 Diabetes in one way or another. 

My 9th confession: I am NOT a girly girl at all. I am a t-shirt and jeans kinda girl. I wore my 1st dress that wasn't in a wedding for the first time in probably well at least 10 years during the AADE conference in Indianapolis. I felt awkward and almost naked because my legs were showing and I could sit cross legged. 

My last confession is that I have anxiety like no one can believe, I cannot take confrontation, it makes me want to physically get sick. Riding in a car is no bueno also because all I think about is the car accident that could happen, I also get very nauseous in the car. Heights, oh God heights and I do not get along at all!, even watching heights on the television make me sick to my stomach. Bad all just very bad. I hate anxiety but I deal with it EVERY day all day and I do not know how to make it go away. It continues to get worse and worse as the days go on. 

I know we all have confessions out there in our lives, those are just a few of mine.