On This Day

My roots were canaled.

And on a lighter note-

On this day 5 years ago I think back on all the bleach bottles filled with used syringes due to my son's type 1 diabetes.

Aw man, that wasn't really a lighter note, was it?

Five years ago today, being the slowest learner I know, I finally caught on that my son was really sick and I needed to take him in. When I called the doctors office to make an appointment and told them his symptoms ("looks severely dehydrated but he's drinking tons") they had me take him to the ER.

He spent 2 days in the ICU and 4 days in the hospital total. He was lucky to not be in a coma, they say... he could have died, they inform me.

Plenty of parents catch their children's diabetes before they are so sick, others like me don't and look back and wonder how we missed it, how they could get so very sick before our eyes and not catch it sooner.

I remembered Wes' first diagnosis stinkaversay and forgot all the rest until today, the 5th.

I could make this the longest blog entry I've ever written but I'll keep it short.

Watching your child give themselves at least 4 shots a day is hard.

Hearing people confuse type 2 with type 1 is harder. Wes' diet had ZERO to do with his diagnosis. NOTHING what-so-ever. But because of type 2 and the obesity link- even people who know it make a slip here and there- that shows it's hard to separate people's ideas of diabetes. And to ever give the impression that one brought it upon themselves? Not cool!

Harder? Realizing it's for a lifetime.

The harderest?

The bleach bottles. Isn't that weird? Something about the visual, something about having a bottle filled with hundreds of needles he's had to poke himself with, something about looking down into the bottle just gets to me.

On a lighter note, for real this time- high blood sugars can make a person grumpy and edgy, being in public with a grumpy diabetic and saying, "Are you high???" always results in some entertaining looks.