One Year

One year ago today our world was flipped upside down by the words:  “Your son is Type 1 diabetic.” 

It is still hard thinking back to that day without getting emotional.  The innocence of me thinking it could never happen to us and that it had to be a mistake.  Then the bitterness I felt, wishing it were someone else’s child, not mine.

Now that we have come to an acceptance, the hardest part to deal with is the constant fear.   The fear that we are trying to control a disease that does not really want to be controlled.  We are always playing the numbers game where every decision we make we are always seconding guessing what we are doing, . . . did we cover enough carbs? . .  or too many?  Are we limiting his sweets too much? . . .  someday backfiring on us.  How are his friends going to accept his disease? . . . will he be invited to birthday parties or even sleep overs? Not to mention the fear of limb amputation, blindness, kidney failure or worse death . . . like the poor children we have learned about though on-line Diabetes Forums since his diagnosis that have lost their lives to the disease. The fear that there will never be a cure. This list goes on and on.  It is comforting to see and hear that we are not alone.  Every parent of a Type 1 shares these fears.  Living to deal with them has been one of our biggest challenges.  Each day does get easier and staying positive is not hard when you see how happy and full of love he is.  It sure rubs off on us!  I know everyone thinks their children are amazing but he truly is!  ;-)

Since it is his one-year anniversary we have decided to “celebrate” it. We went out to the restaurant of his choice, Chuck E Cheese!  You may wonder why we would celebrate such a thing.  But, we are not celebrating that he has diabetes.  We are celebrating that it hasn’t beaten him, or us!  We are celebrating that he’s living, breathing, and in our eye’s thriving!  We are also celebrating that fact that even though his diagnosis has been difficult to take many days, it has brought us closer as a family.  Things that would have bothered us in the past no longer seem to matter.  Our marriage and family are stronger then it has ever been because we have learned to lean on each other in ways we have never thought possible.  

So, even though we mourn what this day, November 7^th has brought us, we are going to celebrate all the wonderful things in our life.  Mainly HIM!  He is a blessing in more ways then we could ever imagine.  He continues to astound us with every aspect of this disease.  I now know why God didn’t answer our prayers of giving us the disease rather than him.  I know without a doubt he is the one in our family who can handle it and will do amazing things with it . . . he already has! 

The other the thing we did last night was to help honor his day is we brought up two care packages to the hospital where he spend five LONG days, when he was diagnosed.  We wanted to brighten the life of a little boy and girl that was hospitalized and let them know we are thinking and praying for them!  Hopefully we can keep these new traditions going!  God is good and we need to remember to thank him for all the wonderful things he has given us!  :-)

Here are some picture from our FUN night!