It has been 4 years since Deacon was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes. In that time, I have gone from believing I had a partner to handling this on my own. (My father has remarked that I have been single nursing Deacon for 4 years and been a single parent to 4 boys for 3 ½ years.) Four years ago mine, Deacon’s and his brothers’ lives changed immeasurably. I did not know the extent of the changes that would be made when I took Deacon to the ER that night. I knew it was diabetes but I did not realize how pervasive diabetes was.
In this four years time, I have cried, gotten angry, known a different kind of fear, kicked myself for making a potentially costly mistake and felt the pride that comes with seeing Deacon growing up healthy. I learned how to adjust his insulin, found out which foods did what and how to handle those issues, and have endured the dreaded sick days. Deacon and I have gone from injections to using the insulin pump. We have tried out what seems to be all the meters on the market. I have watched Deacon learn to test himself, read labels to find the carb count and begin to recognize if he is low or high. I have felt the worry of sending Deacon to school and the relief of him having his nurses checking him throughout his day. I have adjusted my parental beliefs and accepted help from Deacon’s brothers because they wanted to help. There have been a lot of adjustments and more will come too, I am sure.
Recently, I changed how we managed lows, how I log BG’s and started using a brand new meter. Deacon had been using the Freestyle Lite for the past 3 years. I had gotten a Bayer Contour USB for free and gave it a test run. Deacon loved the ease of holding it to test himself and I enjoyed how easy it was to log. I just plug the meter into a USB port and the numbers are uploaded. The Bayer logging software does color code the numbers and the trends are easier to see than the Copilot software I had been using. I do miss seeing the three month average and standard deviation that Copilot showed. I have begun to alternatives to glucose tabs. We are finding that jelly beans are effective. I suppose after 4 years of doing everything the same way, the routine can get stale.
Today, I am not going to dwell on the fact that I, for the most part, have been Deacon’s sole caregiver since he was diagnosed. I am not going to relive the memories of the week Deacon was in the hospital or the subsequent months. I am going to celebrate the fact that Deacon is a healthy, happy, energetic 6 year old. I am going to give Deacon’s older brothers a hug for their hand in this past year. I am going to pat myself on the back for another year of success and blow out a candle to wish on for another successful year. Happy Fourth Anniversary to our “new normal.”
