The onset for Type One Diabetes is often traumatic, as the body reacts quite violently to the lack of insulin and sudden rise in blood sugar levels. It is not often found before the more severe symptoms set in.
Most people are diagnosed in emergency rooms because they have gone into seizures, slipped into comas, or have had spells of intense vomiting and pain from Ketoacidosis, or DKA. Likely, they dropped lots of weight rapidly, were consuming large quantities of fluids, were having frequent and urgent trips to the restroom, and were suffering prolonged infections or illness that could not be explained, and were having spells of confusion as their vision blurred in and out of focus.
Once diagnosed, there are mixed emotions. On the one hand, knowing why all of these bizarre symptoms have been occurring at least gives the person a sense of knowing what is going on, rather then the fear of the worst. However, it is not exactly a comforting idea to know that a vital organ has failed. Nor is it happy news to discover that the life saving drug is administered by needles either through multiple daily injections or infusion sets and tubing linked to a pump to deliver the medicine.
Diabetes is the most demanding disease in what the medical community asks the patient to do, on their own, with little guidance, and quite imperfect medicines, to boot. Diabetics are required to monitor their own blood levels. They are required to measure the carbohydrate intake of every bite of food. They are required to self-dose based upon what they hope are their best measurements on the food in order to determine how much medicine to take. When they do not get the correct dose, they are then required to rescue themselves from the harmful side effects of the insulin by always having emergency fast acting sugar available, even though they are in a compromised physical state at the time their blood sugars drop. Or, on the other hand, they have to make a correction dose of insulin to bring down an elevated blood sugar, which may or may not be elevated due to the food consumed.
Are you feeling daunted yet? Sure. Who wouldn’t be!
Can you afford to stay daunted? Absolutely NOT!
I will say this here and now. If I could take away this disease or make the treatment as easy as taking a pill, I’d do it! It is NOT fair! You will say this a million times. It will be a phrase that lives in the back of your mind, especially at times that should make you happy like the Holidays, because the food is going to be hard to dose for. The traveling is going to be tricky. Simple outings are going to require more thought than you ever remember needing to consider.
I do not sugar coat things and take the route that says, it’ll all be okay. It is going to be work. You are going to have to wrap your mind around the fact that your life is still one you can determine and do most things, but everything is going to require planning, that you never leave yourself without emergency sugar (or it could be the last thing you do), and each event could be disrupted by your diabetes.
This disease has no manners. It does not care if it is your wedding day, your child’s birthday party, or even a funeral of a loved one. Diabetes is always there and it likes to show itself when you are having emotional times, even if those emotions are joy.
The truth is, we may be on the verge of there being a cure. I promise you, I will post a video of me dancing in celebration when the news hits that the cure has arrived! The reality is that this disease can take away your hope of being there to see the day the cure comes by not taking good care of managing your diabetes for even one day.
So, from day one, get your head wrapped around the idea that every single day you are going to wake up and face this monster without fear or intimidation. You are not going to let it take away your determination to live a full life. Do not let it take away your happiness or isolate you from the love that people are so willing to share. Promise yourself that you are worth the effort it takes to be strong, healthy, whole, and loveable.
What I have experienced is that the hardest times I have had have always been when I did not value the effort it took to do the monitoring, the carb counting, and the insulin ratios. I had a period of time about 5 years after being diagnosed where I didn’t worry about the numbers as I should have. They weren’t too bad, so I didn’t make the effort to improve them. I have battled depression and anxiety over this disease for years. Mostly, I felt alone.
This is why I set up this blog and why I am an admin for a Facebook Support Group. It is also why I am searching for opportunities to volunteer in the community to work with other Type One Diabetics. Being alone is painful and heartbreaking. No one needs to be alone with this. Most certainly, no one should be empty handed when it comes to finding good resources that can help them better manage their condition. Every person is unique. You will have to figure out what works for you. But many ideas being shared can give you options and you can try things until you find the fit that puts you in the zone of “These blood sugar levels are not increasing my risk for complications.” That is really the goal with management. Do what makes your body NOT feel sick anymore.
I am attaching a couple of links for the newly diagnosed Type One Diabetic to get familiar with what it is going to take to live long term with this condition and thrive.
I am also going to make a separate post dedicated to parents of Type One Diabetic children that is more tailored to your needs, as this site will not speak to you as much as a parents forum probably will. I say this because self-managed diabetics can trouble shoot based on how we feel and parents have to figure out how to manage their child’s condition with different methods in order to monitor lows and highs. You also have a diabetic whom may not be able to communicate what they are feeling as an adult could. I want to make sure I send you where you will get the most help to care for your child. I was given quite a few references by some wonderful moms from a support group on Facebook that I want to check out before I post the links. It will be up within the next week, though.
This link is for the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation’s page that offers Kits for both Families of Children Diagnosed in the last 6 months with Type One Diabetes and also Adults who are newly diagnosed, as well. This foundation understands the importance of giving guidance for both circumstances. The whole website is very helpful.
http://jdrf.org/life-with-t1d/newly-diagnosed/
I combed through many articles about coping with the emotions of being diagnosed with Type One Diabetes, but I felt like this article, which was not specific to Type One, but was geared towards any Chronic disease diagnoses, actually did a better job covering the important points:
Rare, Misguided, and Type Casted: Living and Thriving with Type One Diabetes 