When I created the new logo and posted it here back in November, I promised that I would be working on a new cleaner, easier to navigate but just as informative website as I always had. It had taken me almost six months of programs crashing, data destroyed, starting again, and fixing html codes to get things up and running.
Over the past few days, I have alternated between wanting to be done and publish the new format, to being terrified of all of the errors and my site crashing because I had messed up so much.
Well my eyes are now permanently crossed, I have found many errors already and will be working to fix many more over the coming weeks but....I pressed the button and this is what happened...
It worked!! So I began to check other pages...
The tattoos were now a little more organized! (We now have over NINETY tattoos!! Wow!! and they have even been featured in recent news reports!)
Pages like my diabetes terms section needs a search engine that works. This one looks real enough but searches...nothing unfortunately.
And that page that I thought I had fixed...well I guess that was just wishful thinking! A lot more to do on this page!
But all in all, its up. Its hopefully running. I hope everyone likes it and finds it helpful!! Time to look for more errors....
At three in the morning, when you are dealing with a low blood sugar, its amazing what can go through your mind...well my mind at least.
I never panic with the first low. I always say thank you that I woke when I did and attempt to wake up just enough to stay alert for at least the next half hour. It would appear that awake "just enough", leaves my brain in a very odd place.
As I began to feed my son glucose tablets in his sleep, I was transported back to a t-shirt my mom had once brought me back after a vacation to the interior of British Columbia. Pictured on the front were two bears talking to each other as a bus load of tourist drove by. One bear turns to the other and says "Look Marty, vending machine!". As I continued to put tablets in my son's mouth I thought, "Yep, feeding him is just like putting coins in a vending machine!" Not quite what the bears were referring to but it all worked in my sleep deprived mind.
By tablet four I had a new thought swirling around in my muddled grey matter. Now the Juicy Fruit gum theme song was playing. All I could think of was "Pop in it your mouth...Juicy Fruit its gonna move ya." Glucose tabs, their gonna move ya? It worked for me. This could be a new commercial! The music continued as I read my book while waiting to retest.
I began to wonder, do all parents have such odd thoughts at three in the morning or is it just me? Who knows but we have to have something to amuse us and keep us semi alert during these times.
Today was that day we all dread...the diabetes clinic day. It started badly. We circled the hospital parking lot forever waiting and waiting for a spot to become vacant. My son rode shotgun and called out "Over there! There's a truck...too late. Follow that little old lady, she's...nope someone got there first." This was our morning for close to 45 minutes. We were late for our appointment.
I was only mildly concerned because, like all good doctor's offices, I knew that this one would also be running behind. I was right. The time spent looking for a parking spot was the time we otherwise would have spent sitting in the waiting room.
Relatively quickly, we were ushered into a room and waited for our numerous visitors. The first person to come in and chat wanted to know how things were going at school. Did we have any issues? Did we need her to call the school? No, we were doing alright there. The issues I had at school were not anything that would be fixed by a phone call. I needed my son to be a little more visible with his diabetes and be less self-conscious about testing. No one could fix that but us.
I was surprised to see my son's doctor arrive next. I have been lucky to have had great doctors for my son since his diagnosis. She asked him how he was doing, asked about any illnesses and then turned to me for basal rates. She looked at his age and asked him how long he had had diabetes for. My son was stuck.
He looked back at her with a blank expression. I could tell that he was thinking, "What do you mean? I have always had diabetes. I can't remember when I was diagnosed. I can't remember my life before." Instead he just said "I don't know."
I piped up and said that it would be twelve years on Saturday. She smiled and said that Mom never forgets. How right she was.
Ironically, on our drive to the hospital that morning, the conversation of my son's diagnosis came up. He asked a few questions and I told him that he had escaped Death's grasp those many years ago. He was rather silent and then said, "I am glad that I don't remember any of that."
I smiled. I wish he remembered life before needles and testing. I wished he remembered a time when it hurt to lance his fingers--he told the nurse today that he no longer feels these things. I hope for a tomorrow when he can look back and say "I used to have diabetes." For now, I just remember how far we have come and continue to grateful every day that my small little boy didn't answer the door when Death came knocking almost twelve years ago.
My son began to pile his site change supplies on the table. I was impressed. He was a day late for his site change but finally, without a lot of nagging from his mother, he was going to change his site!
"Don't forget to bolus for that soup first before you do your site change."
"I can't. I am out of insulin."
"What? What do you mean you are out of insulin?"
"I'm out of insulin. Why do you think I am doing a site change?"
"Ah, maybe because it was due YESTERDAY!?"
My son looked at me like I was insane. I rolled my eyes and proceeded to continue on dealing with things that I had to do.
"Where are you going? You can't leave. I need you to do my site change."
"Why do you need me? Where are you putting your site?"
"In my leg."
Now it was my turn to look at him like he was nuts. "You don't need me to do a leg site. You are perfectly capable."
"Yes, but Mom, you realize that you only have four more years to do site changes for me. I will turn 18 and move on and you will never have this opportunity again. You should be savoring these times just like you say how important it is to share each birthday with me before I leave home. Actually, think of these site changes as being just like my birthday but every three days. Treasure them. In fact, we can make it like my birthday if you want. You can even buy me presents for each site change done!"
His logic is interesting if nothing else!
Note to self, do not tell him how important it is to value time spent with a loved one again. Our idea of quality time seems to be a very different!
As promised months ago, I have been working my fingers off trying to get my website ready to publish in a fresh new look. To say it has presented challenges would be an understatement. I have lost weeks of work. I have found coding errors that I never knew existed and I have a LOT of data! Nonetheless, I am still hoping to have it up and ready to publish in the very, very near future.
Yesterday I tackled one of my more challenging pages--the Faces of Diabetes Page. It contains stories that I collected back in 2005 of people living with diabetes. As I looked at code, changed pictures and updated a few notes, I allowed myself a bit of time to read through some of the stories.
First, let me say that almost seven years later, many people could still make me cry! The raw emotion and the openness with which they told their stories were nothing short of amazing.
The other big thing that struck me was how long I have known some of you! I was shocked to realize that its not just my son who has grown since I first asked for these stories. So many other lovely children who were profiled are now young adults.
Finally, I was surprised to truly realize that I connected with so many of you at the beginning of your journey with diabetes. Over the years we have become friends. We have listened to each other's frustrations and victories. Time passes but I always remember how blessed I am to have "met" so many of you. Its incredible to see how far we have all come.
I would love to add more stories to this page. Please, consider sharing your journey with me. For those who have already shared, come back and look at your story. They will touch you I guarantee!
Today, as I stood in the bathroom preparing for the day by applying make up in hopes of erasing those fine lines, I realized something. This was the month of March. Today was the 5th of March. The anniversary of my son's diagnosis with Type 1 diabetes will occur in 12 days.
Since Diabetes barged its way into our lives, March has always come in with a dark cloud. It would be lurking overhead no matter which way I turned. I would do my best to look at it in a positive light. I would "celebrate" how far we had come. I would count the wonderful friendships and experiences that it had brought into our lives. I would remember. I would look back. I would relive each detail of diagnosis again and again throughout the month.
This year, I have looked at St. Patricks' Day with my same dismay. Its not a day that I feel is filled with luck although we were lucky to save my son. Its a day of reflection but its a day , this year at least, that has seemed to be a long ways off.
I have been worried about getting my oldest son's birthday present purchased and in the mail so that he has it in time for his birthday at the end of the month. I have wondered how 18 years could have gone by so fast. Diabetes was not a thought.
I have focused on really trying to get the new, error free, neat, clean, and easier to use web site up and running. For months I have fought with code and lost data but am now more determined than ever to get the newest version of www.diabetesadvocacy.com up and running this month.
I know that as the 17th comes closer I will reflect. I know that I will relive every moment of that dreaded day. I know that my blog post for that day will look back to that day but for the first time in years, it has started to fade. It is not on my mind all month. Yes, it was a day that changed my life and the life of my family but its not as all consuming of a day as it once was.
I talk about my son taking baby steps forward in his care. Perhaps, after 12 years, his mother is finally taking baby steps towards healing as well.
The other night my son and I were sitting at the kitchen table working on an essay about stem cell research. My young son would rather have been doing anything else but working on this topic so his mind and his mouth constantly wandered to strange new topics. In an attempt to steer him back to the subject at hand, we discussed the use of stems cells in diabetes research.
Out of nowhere he comes up with the idea that people who develop diabetes have had too much sugar and thus "caused" their diabetes.
I replied with my usual "Yes, I force fed you chocolate bars at two and gave you spiked your bottle with nothing but sugar water until finally I succeeded in giving you diabetes."
He looked at me a little strange and I finally replied "Are you crazy?"
His response was "Well, everyone says that if you eat a lot of sugar you get diabetes. They must be talking about Type 2 I guess."
I suddenly shifted gears. He was no longer just goofing around. For some reason he was actually thinking this is true. He asked why "everyone" would say this if there was not some truth in it. I didn't have an answer. I gave him my standard spiel on genetics and how it plays a role in those developing Type 2 diabetes. I told him the benefits of eating healthy for everyone and most especially those who could be prone to develop diabetes.
The conversation continued as he noted that his brother's children could end up with diabetes now that he had added the genetic component to their gene pool. He didn't think that that was fair. I explained that nothing was a given in his own children or his brother's potential off-spring.
We finally moved back around to finishing his paper and establishing his position but the conversation left me a little taken aback. My son, who has lived with Type 1 diabetes since he was two years old, is thin, has always eaten in a very health conscious manner, rarely eats sweets, and has been educated by his mother on the realities of diabetes and the fact that this is not his fault, had begun to question his role in this horrible disease. That scared me. If he can be sucked into the vacuum of misinformation, what in the world are we going to do about John Q Public who does not have the benefit of a D-parent?
