Sarah.... steps up to the plate....

Diabetes affects everyone in the family....not just the child and parents, but the siblings as well. It will be interesting to see how this ultimately impacts each one our children.

So far we have not asked the girls to help with J.J.'s diabetes. This is our responsibility and we know that. Jess(14 y.o) took one of the classes with us in the hospital, but is somewhat apprehensive. Hannah(12 y.o.) is just too scared she will mess up somehow. If they were to show interest we would definitely teach them at least how to check blood. It would be nice to know there is someone else in the house that could take over in the event something happened to me or Jason.

Well....yesterday Sarah(10 y.o) stepped up to the plate. She asked at dinner if she could check J.J.'s blood for us....meal times are always rushed now with measuring food, checking blood sugars, recording carbs, etc. The first finger poke she completely missed the skin....J.J. said "You didn't do anything, Sarah." The second time she did it and got enough blood. This morning I let her do the entire check herself. J.J. was tired and didn't want her to do it, but she did great. Much better than my first few tries.

I'm not sure if she gained confidence after we watched a video together we received from the American Diabetes Association. It was an introductory video explaining diabetes to newly diagnosed patients. The "actors" were just normal kids with diabetes. I think the kids gained a lot of great information and it was good for them to hear from other kids what it's like to live with diabetes, and how they manage it. All the kids in the video were of course healthy active kids. I think the video helped ease the girls' fears after seeing J.J. so sick in the hospital.

Sarah also caused our hearts to melt yesterday when she offered her $500 savings to go towards helping J.J. get the pump. We've already adjusted their lifestyle some....as a family we decided to forgo 4-H horse activities this year as that is one of our biggest "not so necessary" extracurricular activities.....besides Jason sold the vehicle that would transport the horses to the practices etc.....anyway......I explained a little more in detail yesterday why we've adjusted our lifestyle a bit, and a little into the decision making process. That's when she said "J.J. can have my $500 savings. I don't know what I'm gonna do with it." She has a sweet tender heart!!