We're home now. My journal writing is sporadic, fitted in between visits from doctors, nurses, diabetic experts, financial/insurance people, etc. My mind is taken up with testing blood sugars at the right times, calculating carbs when we don't have the cheat sheet right in front of us, (taking calculations from the wrong column in the book and having to make DS eat more to make up for my mistake), measuring yogurt with a cup measure, the honey with a teaspoon. Setting the alarm for 2 am, for another blood sugar check...
DS has been good about giving himself shots, which amazed me completely. I really thought this would take a long time, but he is determined. He is still anticipating the sting, and the inevitable pain that comes with the larger night-time dose of Lantus. He's given all three shots since we've been home, but with great trepidation, first just touching the needle to the skin, wincing, and backing off, then finalizing the place and just going for it. I find myself looking at his wall, commenting on all the Bionicle posters, how it would be neat to laminate them for preservation. DS is frustrated, angry. Maybe this Artist's Way is his journey, too. The first doctors we met told us that working with Diabetes Type 1 is more of an art than a science...
I have a need to document exactly what happened in detail the Tuesday we went from first diagnosis to admission.
>Admission--admitted to the hospital; admitting to ourselves that our first suspicions were right; that we are scared.
I write in fits and starts.
I wonder how my life will unfold, what his life will open up in the future. And why this? Why him? As he said on the first day, sleep-deprived, food and water deprived, deprived of answers, of hints:
Why does everything have to happen to me?
Not everything, I told him, not everything.
This is a poem I found on the Diabetes Health site:
"I Am" Poem
This is a poem submitted to Diabetes Health by Lori Pujol on behalf of her daughter Shannon, who was diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes on January 7, 2006. She wrote this poem for her 7th grade English class this past January.
I am athletic and a diabetic.
I wonder if I will ever quit basketball.
I hear the ball bouncing on the court.
I see me in the hall of fame of all the sports I play.
I want to score 1,000 points in my high school career.
I am athletic and a diabetic.
I pretend no one knows I’m a diabetic.
I feel my body shaking when I am low.
I touch my fingers when I have to test my blood.
I worry that everyone will think I am different.
I cry when I lose my diabetes supplies.
I am athletic and a diabetic.
I understand that people think I ate too much sugar.
I say, I didn’t–diabetes happens to one out of every three people.
I dream that they will find a cure.
I try to raise money for the diabetes foundation.
I hope everyone else will too.
I am athletic and a diabetic.
Time for bed. After sleeping on a fold-out chair for three nights my own bed will be welcome.
--R
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