Hi there,
Just found this site by accident. My daughter Grace is 7, she was diagnosed with T1 at age 5. She's doing great, she's really amazing. She is truly my angel, and she keeps me sane, keeps me smiling, keeps me pushing forward. Still, over 2 years into this, I am still pretty much a mess emotionally. I keep it all together for her, and for my family, because I have to, but my fear is overwhelming, and my worry is unending. I guess that's "normal," but I don't think I'll ever get used to it, or even feel "okay" again, ever. I'm just wondering how people deal with all of the emotions that having a child with this disease brings. Exhaustion, anger, grief, worry, fear, frustration--it's so hard. I try to do everything right, you know, to be on top of it, and try to figure it out and make the numbers make sense, count every last carb, figure in every little variable, look for patterns--but they never do make sense, and it's never enough. It's so hard to feel like I'm always failing, and worse, failing her. I guess I'm just looking for some support. I feel like it's a pretty lonely disease--unless you have it or know someone that does, you just don't "get it."
Thanks for letting me vent a little.
Kim
Hi Kim, My son is 4 and was diagnosed T1 at 20 months. I have found it a drain emotionally too. We've also moved twice in the last two years due to my husband getting promoted which is good long term but hard short term especially for me as I've stopped working to take care of the kids. And it takes time to meet people and trust people to leave my son with so he's pretty much attached to me! I found thought that my emotional life got a bit better when I talked to my doctor about it and I started taking some anti anxiety medicine. It's helped me with that constant panic feeling. It's not the answer for everybody and I don't plan on being on it forever but it's helping me through this hard time. I didn't actually plan on mentioning it but I guess I must be getting tired of hiding it.
What I did plan on saying was that things also got a bit better when I finally listened to those well meaning people who said, "Oh I know someone's whose kid has diabetes." I got up the courage to phone them and meet. Finally another real live person with a Type 1 kid! The get up in the night like me, worry like me, it's been great. I love these online groups too (check out www.myglu.org as well) but there's something to be said for in person. I haven't yet but I'd also like to check out a D family camp next year.
it'll be ok.
Joanne
ps-message me any time.
Hi Grace's Mom! I'm Eric's Mom. Eric is the same age as Grace but we've been dealing with this a lot longer — we hit the six-year mark in October. I totally get what you're talking about and want to reassure you that it does get better. You're not going to completely lose the fears and grief (I still tear up from time to time over it) but eventually things will settle into something approaching a routine. There are a LOT of people in the boat with you, that I can promise you, so there's no need to feel lonely!
I would encourage you to continue talking with people in this list, and also to look up the chats on Twitter that occur with #dsma [Diabetes Social Media] and #doc [Diabetes Online Community]. There are plenty of good parents' blogs out there that you'll relate to — you can look up mine on this site, if you like (http://www.tudiabetes.org/profiles/blog/list?user=16x8jgzdf266z) — if you ever need confirmation that there are people out there who Get It.
I found this site a few weeks after Eric's diagnosis, when it, like Eric, was only a year old. It, like Eric, has grown exponentially since then. I could not have gotten this far without it.