There’s a song in TheKid’s favorite musical, Hamilton, called “Non-Stop.”
That’s what it’s like to be a caregiver. Non-stop. As the song says, “every second you’re alive, every second you’re alive…”
But as the song also says, “Look around, look around! How lucky we are to be alive right now.” 10 years ago the fight was very different. 100 years ago, there wasn’t a fight at all. Insulin wasn’t discovered for use in diabetics until the 1920s.
There’s always that underlying worry about diabetes. A diabetic (and those who care for him) doesn’t get time off. Every meal, every snack, every physical activity, even the timing of a bath or shower: diabetes factors in for all of these.
When I wake up in the middle of the night, I check my phone to see how his blood sugar is. When I’m out and about during the day, I do the same–before I get into the car to go somewhere, I make sure everything is OK. Because if it’s not, I might have to be ready to drop everything and pick him up at school. It takes a lot for me to go somewhere if it’s over 20 minutes away from school.
Copyright 2016 Barb Szyszkiewicz. All rights reserved.
About once a week I sit down at the kitchen table and fill insulin cartridges. I call myself the Equipment Manager. I rotate the inventory when new test strips, infusion sets and CGM sensors are delivered, because all these things have expiration dates.
I don’t just pack his lunch on school days; I check inventory in his bag of tricks: extra pump cartridge and infusion set, insulin pen with needles just in case, extra meter, Smarties, juice box, Skittles, peanut butter crackers, Gatorade for soccer.
TheKid invited a couple of friends to sleep over last night. I don’t know what he ate, but I’ve been up since before 5 (again) battling the high blood sugar that resulted. Or maybe the pump site is going bad. Who knows?
It’s always something. Even for a kid with generally good diabetes control and an awesome A1C.
But we do what we can do keep him healthy.
Non-stop.
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