If you asked me a month ago if I would be able to give an injection to someone, I would have probably doubted myself or said if it were an emergency.  I’m not a fan of needles.  But it turns out that I’m pretty good at giving a shot to someone else.   Maybe I should have been a nurse?
Every day is a learning experience as living with someone with Type 1 Diabetes is a full time job for the caretaker.  Our kids are all ok, no worries, but we have a T1 living with us and his care is a huge job.  Who knew!?
For daily care there are 8+ plus times/day to check blood sugars (and we are hyper vigilant and check if there is ANY question of him being low or acting out of the norm and 4-5 times/day to give injection.  Besides the stress of that and trying to keep this person’s blood sugars “within range”, we have to measure and calculate the carbs in what he eats and then try to guesstimate how much of each food he ate and the total carbs, then compensate for those carbs with insulin injections.  With all the things we have to do, the most stressful time is at night.  We check him before he goes to bed, before we go to bed and at 3am.  If he’s low in any way, he gets to have juice and we wait for 15 minutes and check him again.  Repeat if necessary.
This is a serious, life long condition that many don’t understand.  I’ve joined a Facebook page of Parents of T1 kids and the emotions run high, the parents are completely stressed out (wouldn’t you be if you had to constantly monitor, adjust and document your child’s health?) but it’s wonderful the way they embrace all my “newbie” questions and offer up support.
Anyhow, that’s what’s keeping us busy these days, we are exhausted but feel like we are starting to understand this a little and gaining confidence all the time!