3,650 days

Yesterday JJ and I drove the hour to his regular diabetes appointment.  Half way there it hit me…hard. 

“Ten years!” I said
“What?” as he put a finger in his book so he wouldn’t lose his place.
“It’s been 10 years, to the day …I think….that you were diagnosed with diabetes.”
“Oh.” he says  in a way that conveys.. “Mom’s whacked!!! I’ll get back to this book now.”

Tears begin to swell, I fight them back.  Not now, not now…it’s not the time.  Besides I truly can’t remember if it was the 7th or 8th.  I have to look at this blog to remember.  I do that when we reach the doctor’s office.  The day is the 8th…..the year is 2007.

It’s been 10 years since that Pancake Saturday morning where my boy sat on the heat register swaying as if he were drugged.  Not coherent, going limp, yet still swaying.

Wait!!  I can’t’ do this…I can’t go there.  I’m sobbing and I’m just at the beginning of the story.  Which really isn’t the beginning because he’d been “sick” all week with flu like symptoms but we were so immersed in my husband’s holiday Christmas gatherings(I think we had 3 that week) that I pushed his symptoms to the side.

Y’all can read about his diagnosis…..the early days….if you’d like.  It should still be here…on the blog.  I will flash forward, spare some tears.

I don’t write much about diabetes much anymore.  A myriad of reasons but the two main ones are 1.) I have a younger son that TALKS CONSTANTLY….there isn’t the time to get thoughts formulated on a consistent basis…and as I age I find I need a lot more quiet to formulate coherent thought.  2.)  JJ is now a teenager…his diabetes is HIS…he is at the age where he can speak of it for himself if he chooses.  Kinda like doctor patient confidentiality, I wouldn’t want my medical stuff out there for the world to see unless I wrote it myself.  So to respect his privacy I have to watch what I say here.

But in all reality…. another reason….diabetes is so ingrained in our lives.  It’s been 10 years.  We don’t know any different.  We don’t know life without it.  It’s really nothing “special”…..to us.  He manages a lot on his own, yet we are involved.  It looks so much different now that he’s older.

This fall  it did change some when he was put on the latest Medtronic pump and glucose sensor system 670G.  This pump has an auto-mode feature that allows the pump to vary his insulin based on what the sensor is telling the pump.  His A1C dropped 1.1%...that’s a huge drop for us.  Still not the lowest he’s been, but exciting to see that possibly we could get it down under 7.

Some things still haven’t changed.  I still worry at times about the long term effects of diabetes.  Of his future, medically.  He’s becoming an adult…beginning driver’s ed next month….driving the month after that.  How will all that look?  How will the effects of diabetes alter his adult life?  Adulthood…..the future...his future....with type one???   I try not to think too much about it.  One day at a time.

Or 3,650 days at a time….a decade complete…..