Justin's now like all the other kids - by Pamela Paslow paslowp@cs.rpi.edu
Our son, Justin was diagnosed just shy of 3 years old. He's now 14.
Even just 11 years ago things were much more simple and less
technical. He's always been in good control but 2 years ago when he
was 12 he got the Disetronic pump and started using Humalog insulin.
It's the greatest thing in diabetes that has ever happened to him and
the entire family. For the first time he was able to sleep past 7:00
a.m. He could go to parties at his friend's without worrying about
when they were going to eat. One of the things that is the best for
us as parents is that if he should be up sick during the night for
whatever reason, we always still had to wake him in the morning for
insulin and food. Sometimes it was only an hour or so after he had
just gone to sleep. I think that was the one thing I hated. Also,
I've found it easier to deal with sick days when you don't have to
make him eat "something or anything" to keep this BGs up. This age
has seemed to be just the best time to get all this freedom. He's now
like all of the other kids. At 12 we found that the night time BGs
were difficult to maintain which left his morning numbers high. With the
basal rates he is now in good shape. He often had stomach aches in
the morning. We assume it was from an unexpected NPH drop. In the past two
years that hasn't happened.
The first day he got the pump and had breakfast (in the hospital) he leaned over against his Dad's arm and said "I have a stomach ache, but it was worth it". He had a huge smile on his face. He had just eaten his first Froot Loops and loved it! The stomach ache was only a temporary problem from eating so fast.
He's bowled since he was 8 or 9 in a kid's league. All of the kids there have always eaten junk food the entire time they were there. Justin was always happy to be able to have his afternoon snack there which was usually something like pretzels or occasionally potato chips. When he got the pump that was one treat we awarded him right away and that was to be able to have a candy bar like the other kids. He was delighted. It was so nice to be able to do that for him after all the years he didn't complain about having to having "boring" pretzels or chips (as compared to what everyone else was having).
The pump has definitely been the best thing short of the diabetes going away altogether. I think it's made him feel really whole and a real part of the crowd.
Pamela Paslow paslowp@cs.rpi.edu