So a few updates:
Gray did NOT want to participate in the Trial Net study (you have to be a "willing" participant, and he just was too afraid to stick out his arm!). So we will try again another time.
Jer was able to have his blood draw, so I guess we will just keep trying with Gray. It sucks, however, on the paranoid parent forefront.. I keep tensing up when Gray says his tummy hurts, or is thirsty, or pees one increment more than usual.
I am trying to remind myself that "what will be, will be" and I am not in control of what happens in my kids pancreas. Oh, that I could be!
Logan experienced a semi major setback in terms of cooperation with the insulin injections, and we actually had to back
allllll the way up to going to a two person insulin shot, one parent holds him down, one parent pokes the leg. I'm sure you can guess how much this sucks. It makes me look into the dark abyss of our time at the hospital, the shock, fear, confusion, and rejection of it all. So I wound up my week being fairly depressed. Plus, I was sick and tired, and my toe hurt,
basically, I was a mess.
My mom came over on Thursday, saw me sobbing in the kitchen between coughing attacks, saw the kids being rude and non-compliant, and said "That's it! You are not going to treat MY daughter like this!" and took the kids for TWO DAYS. For us, this is like winning the
lottery or something. We needed a break so badly, and thank god for Linda
Brender, we got one. I was so close to the edge. Logan wouldn't let me give him shots, Gray kept interrupting with four thousand tiny problems, the house was piling up, I could barely breathe, I wasn't sleeping at night, and I just lost it.
I am finally feeling better, but coming to the realization that I have not really "dealt" with how I really feel about Logan's condition on anything but a surface level.
Good thing I have a counselor! And good friends. Sherri insisted I come over on Friday instead of moping in my house, and we went shopping for THREE HOURS!! Uninterrupted!
Unhassled!
Un-mommy-can-i
haveit- I have to go potty-ed!
Ahhhh. The healing powers of shopping.
We went to a thrift store and I bought up a bunch of sweet/funny/cool little things for the kids to have as prizes, when the
HSP goes well. I can't say enough about how much I love Sherri. She made me dance in the bedding isle, pore over glassware, let me help her decorate her kids playroom, and just plain spent time with me. She always makes me laugh, and never lets me sink down too low- somehow she does it without negating my feelings, it's hard to explain her certain kind of wonderfulness. She also gave me an early birthday present.. two beautiful wrought iron pieces for our garden.. I love them!!
Jer and I had time to talk (and talk, and talk) about how we feel stuck, what to do, how we need to be role models of happiness, but how can we when we are depressed? So we are both going to do counseling, for a while, and try and get ourselves back. I know it seems strange, but I read a few places that with conditions like Diabetes, sometimes parents almost go though a post traumatic stress disorder type of reaction... delayed depression after the crisis calms down. It's normal, I hate it, I know I have to "feel it to heal it" and I am trying.
One thing I feel, is that I hate Diabetes. Even the word makes me want to cry.
I hate opening our new box of syringes, and having this crazy photograph of a lady smiling her face off about
BD syringes.. Lady! They poke you with these, you know!!
Grr.
I just really got into a bad place, and I best not go back, so I will not make an I hate list.
I will make another list.
Things that are good:
My friends
My husband, the wonderful soul that he is. I could NOT do this without him.
Max, he is so supportive.
MY PARENTS.. thank you so much for doing what it took when I couldn't.
Halloween is coming! (Logan can eat candy, as long he does a shot
afterwards, so no biggie)
Logan has his clinic appointment this week, with his "team" (Endocrinologist, Dietitian, Diabetes nurse) so we can ask questions about the pump and the pen. (more on those later)
And, my favorite new thing ever. There are dogs, called "Diabetic Alert Dogs" (my friend Heather called me yesterday, and her husband told me about them)
So these dogs are specially trained to smell when a person is hypoglycemic (dangerously low blood sugar) and "alert" the diabetic and or/the caregiver.
I am so excited about this!! I think we would wait until Logan is 12 or so, but can you imagine how
empowered he would feel to have such a support? Check out this website, and watch the little video about Diabetic Alert Dogs..
http://www.dogs4diabetics.com/aboutus/aboutus.htmlthere are several different trainers in the US, and the wait list is long, and the price is high for many of them. (they range from $150- $12,000!) but it gave me hope, watching that video, and thinking of a new thing that we could give Logan,
maybe right before he turns into a teenager, to get him through that rough crossing.
So overall,
Jer and I have realized we need to model what we want for our kids, and it boils down to "Happiness and Responsibility". I also know we have to deal with our feelings, or they will never go away. It's a hard balancing act. I found this passage in one of my daily meditation books, and it is helping me put a better frame on this healing process:
"We should learn not to grow impatient with the slow healing process of time.
We should discipline ourselves to recognize that there are many steps to be taken along the highway leading from sorrow to renewed serenity...
We should anticipate these stages in our emotional convalescence:
unbearable pain, poignant grief, empty days, resistance to consolation,
disinterestedness in life, gradually giving way.. to the new weaving of a pattern of action and the acceptance of the
irresistible challenge of life." - Joshua
Loth Leiberman
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