Saturday, September 22, 2012

Like an infant

In my opinion having a diabetic child in your home is in some ways like having an infant in your home.

With an infant as the parent you have many responsibilities to take care of your child especially through the night ... You get up every few hours to feed them and re diaper them, you stay up at night when they are fussy, and you check on them frequently to make sure they are still breathing

Well ladies and gentleman ... This is exact ally what us parents of Type 1 diabetics do every single night from the night of diagnosis until the night that our children leave our homes and go off into the world.

We as parents of Type 1 diabetics have to get up every few hours to check our child\'s blood sugars to make sure that they are in a safe range, if our child\'s blood sugar is low we have to wake our children up to eat/drink to bring their blood sugars up to a safe and stable range. If our child\'s blood sugar is high we have to give them a correction dose (bolus) of insulin to make sure that their blood sugar comes back down to a stable range. When our child\'s numbers are out of range that means we must wake up even more frequently that night to check their blood sugar levels and make sure they stay in the safe range.

As the parents of Type 1 diabetics some of us also have to check our children for restroom accidents. Yes this is not as common in most cases but when a Type 1 Diabetics blood sugars are high to get rid of the extra glucose in their system the body\'s response is to get it out via urination. In these cases some children with Type 1 diabetes wear pull ups to bed and should an accident occur we parents must deal with those pull up changes.

We also as parents of Type 1 diabetics just like parents of newborns dread what is referred to in the diabetes realm as dead in bed, this is where a Type 1 diabetic does to bed as usual and never awakes, just like what would happen in a SIDS infant. This is a rare occurrence but all of us parents wether you have an infant, a non diabetic child, or a diabetic child fear losing our children, I know I do! I know I as a mom to a Type 1 diabetic fear this happening every night!!

So like I said in my opinion in many ways I think raising a child with Type 1 diabetes is like raising an infant except our children don\'t grow out of this disease so while it is our routine now .. It will be our child\'s routine when they start managing their own diabetes

2 comments:

julie holt said...

Couldnt have said it better myself. Agree 100%

Jaime Meyer said...

My T1 is 3 and we must wash sheets 5 nights a week. I have a 3 month old non d baby and I swear she wears on me less as far as stress goes than my T1. Thank you for this post. I might need to share it with my circle of friends.