A Little Gratitude on Diabetes

Out of the blue, I decided to write a blog post. My computer died a while ago, and the photos from my nice camera have nowhere to go, so I haven't gotten the draft posts published. But, I've been doing some thinking about diabetes that I thought I'd share. So I will try to do this post via phone.

Nearly everyday I think about how incredible it is to hold insulin.

This little vial of fluid is the thing keeping my son alive.

Check out this little paper blood test strip.

If I tear back the top paper, it looks like this:

For a handful of change, I have this amazing device for testing blood sugar amounts in my child. A half inch piece of paper!

I read that symptoms of diabetes were recognized in ancient Egypt. For thousands of years, people have suffered from this mysterious autoimmune disease with no answers. And now, simple it seems, is help.

Recently my parents were in town for Easton's baptism. My mom gave me a spiral bound book of some ancestry files. Immediately I turned to a page with my great-grandmother. I had never seen a picture of her before. I had never really thought about her until recently. She died long before I was born. Here is the only photo I've seen:

Doesn't she look cute? Her hair done up and wearing a fancy hat. She is smiling too, which seems unusual for the time. My great-grandmother had five children. Until recently, I only knew about my grandmother and her two sisters. The oldest in the family was a son named Wilford. When Wilford was 19, he was diagnosed with diabetes. When he was 21, he died from it, on Christmas morning. Sometime during the night, he had gotten up to wrap everyone's presents and set them out.

My grandmother was 4 at the time, her sisters were 15 and 9. The youngest was 2, another son. I was just thinking about the heartache my great-grandmother must have felt, seeing her son draw nearer to death without being able to do anything about it. A little over a year later, her baby boy would show the same symptoms and die from diabetes before making it to his fourth birthday.

I didn't realize how sick Ander was getting for a while. It started with me making a comment that I didn't think Ander was getting enough nutrition from his meals. I told Michael I thought he needed more vegetables. His complexion wasn't a nice pinkish, childish color. It seemed pale and he had darker circles under his eyes. Michael had noticed it as well.

A couple of weeks later, it snowed the first day of Spring Break. It was a Monday. The kids put on their snow gear and ran out. Kynlee and Easton zipped around the nearby fields, but Ander slugged along. He kept laying down every four steps. He said he was tired and asked me to carry him. I had Maeleya in my arms, so I made him endure. I thought, "Whew, he has really gotten out of shape over the winter. He needs to get more exercise."

That was Monday, on Thursday we were checking him into the children's hospital emergency room. The day before, on Wednesday, he was smiling and laughing about a game he was playing. The angle his face was, and the light on it, made me realize how haggard he looked. His face seemed sunken in, pale, with dark circles. I knew something was wrong, I just didn't have a name for it yet.

I stayed with Ander in the hospital for two days. After his first shot of insulin, both Michael and I had a little weight taken off our heartache. We knew he was getting better. That night, he slept peacefully through it for the first time- in a long time- without the usual symptoms.

So I am grateful for the generation we live in, that lets me as a mother see recovery in my son and hope for his future. And I have empathy, for all those in the years past that had to endure without that hope of recovery.

Ander's view

The ninja returns