This has been a very emotional week and I have tried to insulate
myself from a lot because...well I don't know if I can handle too much
more. Recently, my family lost a dear young friend. He spent a lot of
time at my house while growing up, was a good friend to my children and
had only just become a new father himself. He death was both sudden and
shocking. He was only 21 and I still cannot begin to imagine the pain
of his parents.
This week I have been seeing many Facebook posts
about 3 or 4 children with Type 1 diabetes who died in the within the
past few days. That is way too much death for me to handle. I honestly
have not read the stories. I have heard of officials questioning the
diet of an undiagnosed toddler who died--as if his sugar intake could
"cause" type 1 diabetes rather than the medical community not diagnosing
him? The horror is unimaginable.
As I mentioned the
other day, this was also diabetes clinic week. I still don't have our
most recent A1c back but we got a great pep talk about how its just a
number and its only a concern if there is continued problems. I give
that speech but it was nice to hear them saying the same thing to my
son. No matter what reading comes back, I hope we do watch things more
carefully, learn and move with forward with a stronger footing.
After
the doctor's pep talk and my mention of the possibility of a rebound at
night after what I assumed was an undetected low, our nurse came in.
She reviewed the documentation and said "Oh, he had a really bad low
did he?"
I was kind of puzzled. What bad low? What happened? Where was I?
"He went low at night. How terrifying for you!"
Crap!
That low! I had put "that low" out of my head. It was my big failure.
It was my biggest fear almost realized. Did she have to mess with my
protective bubble? As I said, this has been a rough week and I was doing
a great job at insulating myself against any more stress or guilt.
Mess
with my bubble she did! Instantly I had a flood of guilt as I
remembered hearing someone else innocently telling me that they had woke
up to hear my son moaning in his sleep and knowing that I didn't wake
up! The panic stormed back in as I relived the fear of "what if his
body hadn't kicked out glycogen?" Was he really going that low? Could
something horrible really have happened between the 3am check when he
was perfect and the 7am check when he was high?
I quickly shrugged
her comment off stating that I didn't know "for sure" that it had
happened. I made adjustments the following night based on assumptions
and the fact that he was insulin resistant for most of the next day.
Extreme testing, him waking and telling me he was dropping, and
subsequent basal reductions would suggest that a problem may have
occurred, but let's again say that this was all very theoretical.
She
simply nodded as if to say "if it looks like a duck, quacks like a
duck, and walks like a duck, its probably a duck." Or in diabetes terms
"If it looked like a rebound, you had subsequent lows at a similar
time, and a reduced basal fixed it, he probably went low and you missed
it!" Thank heavens she just nodded and smiled. That allowed me to slip
back into my lounger on the River De-Nial. Its a beautiful place.
With all of the ugliness of the week, I think I will happily float
there a little while longer. The alternative is not a good place to
be--terror, guilt, and more sleeplessness.
This week I was going to write about Diabetes Art Day. I actually I planned to participate until I took a look at the amazing creative efforts of people and felt that my stick men would just not cut it (even if I made them out of test strips!) . That was the plan but life seems to change plans.
I was speaking to a friend the other day. His daughter in-law and grand-daughter were returning from the funeral of a young man. I had heard that a friend of this woman's son had passed away and I felt bad for those who loved him but that was my last thought...until this conversation. That is when I learned a bit more about how he died.
This young man, someones baby, someones son, was just 20 years old. He had Type 1 diabetes. He was active and involved in sports. He went low while playing sports, passed out, seized and never regained consciousness.
My heart stop. I had to remind myself to breathe. My friend said that he really hadn't wanted to tell me about a diabetes death of a young man but he felt that I would find out anyway. I somehow managed to continue the conversation noting that I sadly am well aware of how deadly diabetes is. We continued to talk and educated. He understood much more about my fears after years of spending time with myself and my son. He knew that this could be my child and that my fears were justified.
I don't know this young man's family. I don't know about his life. I know that he is only just older than my oldest son. I know that his family is now living my worst nightmare. I know that this isn't right. I know that young children are not to die because of diabetes. It just should not be.
Parents worry about their sons drinking and driving. We worry about them trying drugs. We worry about them getting into bar fights, having an accident at work, or driving too fast. I know...I worry but I don't obsess.
Last night, my internal alarm went off at 2 am. I rolled over, looked at the clock and before I could groan about how unfair it was that I have been getting out of bed throughout the night for all of these years, I was up. As I walked to my son's room, I said "Thank you." I repeated those words as I searched for his meter, strips and lancing device. I said thank you again, when I saw a high reading and reached for his pump to correct. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
I realized that as I was standing there testing, another family was waking with no one to test. They were wishing that they were me. They prayed to have their time back to hold their son, to watch him sleep, to be able to test him and see him wake for one more morning.
I headed back to my bed grateful for all that is. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
