A well visit at the pediatrician and an irregular test result led to repeated tests on Friday, which led to child number three’s hospitalization from Friday through Sunday night. The final diagnosis: Hoshimoto’s disease and diabetes.
The first we can take care of with medicine and, as long as he takes it regularly, there are no real concerns. The second – type one diabetes – can also be treated with medication, but there are more toys involved: antiseptic wipes, glucose meters (that lose their battery power at 10 pm), testing strips, insulin, injector pens, and tons of paperwork. Then there is the change in eating habits. No more than 60-70 carbs per meal and about 20 per snack. Check out the labels next time you go shopping and think about that. I have promised to limit myself in solidarity and the girls know our family eating habits will change, so in the end, child number one might be right when she called all of this, “a blessing in disguise.”
The patient is a trooper. Testing himself and injecting himself has quickly become second nature. He wearily offers his fingers for the midnight and 3:00 am test these first few weeks and shows me how he injects into the fatty part of the thigh with ease. He is becoming adept at reading labels and knows that giant bowls of pasta are not in his immediate future – at least until we get used to this new normal.
The parents are another story. His mother accompanied him to the hospital and never left his side. Nervousness and worry gave way to boredom because, when you look around at the other patients, there was a lot less to do for a child who just watches movies between tests and injections. As the girls and I were leaving the other day, I caught a glimpse of some of the other patients – heads shaved, barely coherent, confined to wheelchairs. Yes, we’ll take the inconvenience of diabetes any day.
Still, I think there is a mourning period that happens when your child’s life changes. Since I was at camp with high school and college students, the immediacy of it all fell to Maureen. Ever the daughter of a nurse, she is amazing: confident and calm under pressure. And yet, there is a twinge of pain when we think of how his life – all our lives – will change. How we eat, how we prepare for vacations, how he will need to test himself at school, the effects of stress on our bodies, and on and on.
The child, however, is made like Rubbermaid. He will bounce back and we will oddly draw strength from him. He is already made one thing clear: he is not a diabetic. He is a boy with diabetes. It’s the new normal and I pray that, in time, we are all as clear-headed about it as the eleven-year-old.
May your week be free of worry and may you enjoy the independence that comes from realizing we were never really in charge to begin with.