I can't take credit for it... It's from Bennett's blog called.... Your Diabetes May Vary! Click to check it out.
It just stuck with me.... because it is SO TRUE.
This is a post that has been floating around in my head for months. It's never made it out before now... but it keeps coming back into focus time and again...
Everyone is different. Although many of us have children with diabetes and we are alike in so many ways... we're still different. We deal with the emotions differently. We treat D differently. We worry about different things.
And that's good. Because diabetes is like a fingerprint. No two cases are alike.
Sometimes, though, it just smacks me in the face.
I met a mother at a holiday get together. Her daughter had just gotten out of the hospital a week earlier after being dx'd. Her daughter was about 8. She was one of the first other moms that I met. And it was such an eye opening conversation.
She was irritated that her daughter would not just go play with the other kids. She clearly had no idea what she was in for... talking about her not being under control YET. Sweetpea had just started the pump. She expressed mild interest and I told her if she was interested in looking at it and seeing the supplies, I had it all with me... I'd be happy to show her. She was not interested. She did not want to talk to me about it. She acted like she couldn't care less.
I was shocked. Now, It's very possible that this woman was in shoch herself. Maybe she was tired of thinking about it and dealing with it. I have no idea what she was thinking and feeling - and I realized that there was nothing WRONG with the way she was handling it.
It was just VERY different from myself.
I hear that there are moms of Type 1 kids out there that..... SLEEP THROUGH THE NIGHT. Now, this is what I hear. I have never met one. To me, they are like unicorns or leprechauns. You HEAR about them but never see them in real life...
That is just totally out of the realm of my possibilites. Don't get me wrong - I'd just about kill for a full night of sleep without the worry of D. If you know me, you know that I LOVE sleep. I need 8 hours to function. More is better. And that number is a JOKE now.
These parents that sleep through the night... more power to them. I don't judge and I don't think that they are doing anything wrong. But I don't see me doing that anytime soon. I love what Laura said about this subject...
It's BS when people ask me - - - 'Why are you still checking him at night?' or
'When will you be able to stop checking him all night?'. I want to ask them when
they would stop?!?! Would that be rude? If your child had a disease that could
potentially kill them - when would you stop checking?
We just can't. The WHAT IF is too strong. WHAT IF we don't check and we miss a low. WHAT IF we don't hear the cgm or it's off and doesn't beep. WHAT IF something happened and my baby died in the middle of the night because I was too lazy to get out of bed? I can't take that risk. I just can't.
(now, I'm not saying you're lazy if you don't get up to check. I'm just saying that that is what I'd be telling myself. And do tell myself when I feel too tired to get my rump out of bed.)
Just like we all choose different pumps. Just like we choose different kinds of insulin and insulin therapy. Just like we choose different ways of logging (or not logging) the numbers. Just like we treat lows differently. Just like different foods do different things to our children's blood sugar. We're all different. And that's Ok.
Because it's what UNITES us that is most important. What unites us is stronger than our differences.
And when we stand united, we are stronger than diabetes.
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