2023 Author: Anita Thornton | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-05-22 03:30
On October 2, 2003, I learned that my son had diabetes. It was a real thunderbolt in my life. For my companion: a cataclysm!
On October 2, 2003, I learned that my son had diabetes. It was a real thunderbolt in my life. For my companion: a cataclysm!
My partner already knew what type 1 diabetes entails for a child: insulin injections and blood sugar tests several times a day, counting the number of grams of carbohydrates in all meals and all the snacks, always having the situation of the diabetic child in mind, being afraid of making a mistake, being afraid of the long-term consequences of this disease, and above all, being afraid of a diabetic coma: the nightmare!
Me, I didn't know any of this and, like a good guy, I said to myself: I'm a man, I'm strong, we'll get through it! But… when I realized what type 1 diabetes really was and what it involved, for me too, it was a cataclysm. A tornado. An earthquake. Suddenly, for no reason, overnight, the beautiful dream of a perfectly he althy child, never sick, spared from all the wounds of life was flayed. Something irreversible had just happened. Something thatwould NEVER change had happened to my child and I was moved to the core.
For at least a month, my girlfriend and I cried every day. We looked at each other, we cried. We looked at our son, we cried. We didn't think of anything and we were still crying. Pain, anger, revolt and helplessness were present in turn, but above all, the irrational desire to go back. How many times have I dreamed of waking up in the morning and nothing happened? Unfortunately, every morning I woke up and the diabetes was still present. Still there. So we had to resign ourselves and learn to live with diabetes.
I had to learn…
- to calculate insulin doses;
- to give injections, in the right place, without hurting my son;
- taking blood sugar tests with the damned machine that at first always said ERROR, ERROR, ERROR;
- to calculate the grams of carbohydrates in meals and snacks;
- prepare more balanced meals;
- what to do in an emergency;
- learn, learn, learn, ALWAYS learn…
And I also had to learn (and above all!) to manage… my son's emotional reaction to the imposition of these new constraints, my daughter's reaction, who often feels forgotten in all this upheaval in our family life, the reaction of my companion and mine, as parents and as a couple… In fact, our anxieties to all, in relation to diabetes, sothat life goes on, that you have to earn a living, go to school, get up in the morning, do the grocery shopping, etc. And we had to do all this, without going crazy or completely distressed!
The most incredible thing is that we haven't gone crazy and we're only… a little bit anxious! Now, almost three years later, I believe we are functioning very well on a day-to-day basis. We do not prevent ourselves from doing anything; you just have to plan a little more. We have all learned, children and parents alike, to integrate this new fact into our family life.
In fact, the feeling that lives in me today is that… if we do everything we have to do, my son will have a very good life. As we pay more attention to his diet and do a little more exercise, in reality, he is likely to be he althier than a child who does not have diabetes. What a paradox! I am therefore very optimistic, confident in the future and avoid, it seems to me, falling into the trap of overprotecting my boy.
However, when I think back to the time of the diagnosis on October 2, 2003, there is still a tightness in my throat and I still feel like crying, but I realize that it is not no longer a clap of thunder, nor a cataclysm that overwhelms me, but rather a fleeting, interior rain, which no longer prevents me at all from seeing the beautiful days on the horizon. Life is made of small and big joys, small and big mourning, you just have to learn to livewith.
