Started this morning waking up my son and instructing him to check his glucose with a finger poke to make sure his continuous glucose monitor is reading correctly before he eats breakfast. I went back to my own room and thought to myself how grateful I am for needles.
It’s been a year and a half since our youngest child was hospitalized, emaciated with diabetic ketoacidosis. I was glad we had opted to take him straight to Children’s Mercy and that the doctor recognized the symptoms and had his glucose tested. Diagnosis: Type 1 diabetes.
Our world changed with that diagnosis. For my child it means needles, LOTS of needles. There are finger sticks for glucose monitoring, CGM sensor sticks, insulin pen sticks several times a day, blood tests from the lab every three months and sometimes more. It means he has to weigh his desire for a snack against his discomfort at yet another poke. It means counting carbs EVERY day for everything he eats forever. It means having to wait to eat until the counting is complete and the insulin is dosed.
For me that diagnosis means I have to force my child to use needles every day. It means I have to make sure he has supplies and snacks available everywhere he goes and that there is an adult available to oversee his medical care. It means much more, but the hardest to me is that my enforcement or non-enforcements of doctor instructions means life or death to my child and it is a life long diagnosis.
That said, I am so grateful for those needles. I am so grateful for the people who discovered that insulin could be created outside the body and injected. The fact is . . . my son would be dead if it weren’t for those people. He would no longer be here with us if it weren’t for those needles.
No, I don’t like needles, but I thank the Lord for them.
To the Ends of the Earth 