Hello all. Sorry to keep being a while, but I’m getting distracted into more solid things for the minute — a book, mainly. All the way it should be, as pointed out by Deborah (hello!) and Val (howdy!). 

However, if you’ll bear with me I’ll keep coming by here, just less often.

Things to say:

1) thank god for family. My favourite aunt Lois just visited last week, and she was a breath of welcome and fresh air. M thought she was the best thing since sliced bread. And really, any feeling of being special is good for M at the moment…

2) two people have now sent me Justin Webb’s Mail on Sunday article from this week, so I thought I’d pass it on. It’s very, very good. We knew about his son’s diagnosis somehow days after E was diagnosed, so I do feel we are going through this together. Somehow. But any visit to any diabetes forum will reveal that hundreds of parents are going through this together, daily…

3) You don’t get used to it. The oh-so-common perception of type 1 is that somehow a routine evolves, and ya just give ‘em shots, and gee, everything falls into place.

I can’t count the number of times well-meaning people have said to me: you’ll all get used to it. Well, I’ve got news for everyone: you never get used to it. You just stop bothering to talk about it. Diabetes is a chronic disease the parameters of which change minute by minute by hour by hour and daily, particularly in growing children.  

There are ways of coping, and ways of knowing how to make things better, sometimes. Steps to take. But each step is a decision, arrived at by another decision. Which may or may not be based on precedent. Several times a day.

All those type 1 diabetics who, again, I have heard so much about (from people, please note, who do not have diabetes in the family): so and so just got on with it, did it all without batting an eyelid, etc…okay, you can BET that ’so and so’ arrived at that casualness one of two ways: either through well-disguised, obsessive involvement with his or her blood sugar levels, carb consumption, and treatment, OR through bad blood sugar control. Because YOU CAN’T SEE IF A DIABETIC HAS GOT IT A LITTLE BIT WRONG. No one can. So for every diabetic who seems to be doing well, and who you cite as an example, there is every chance that actually he or she isn’t doing so well, and isn’t actually doing much to extend or preserve his or her life and quality of life.

Of course there are a great many who are doing everything in their power to keep good control, and succeeding, and I wish for that success with E and celebrate other successes daily. But my point is — unless you are there, you really don’t know, and can’t tell.

So there. 

Just a bit fed up.

Not that everyone doesn’t mean well. As I said. 

Sorry.