Type 1 Diabetes: What You Don't See

Type 1 Diabetes: What You Don't See

Let me tell you what you don't see.

You don't see the impact the heatwave has on my daughter. I presume most people think the bags under her eyes are because I let her stay up late or the hot weather is causing her restless nights. You don't see her sobbing without reason in a morning, you don't hear her snap like a pre-menstrual teenager because she is high.

Turns out, diabetes is a foe of the sun.

I would go so far to say; diabetes hates the heat and shows its wrath on my eldest child.

It's hot, so diabetes waits until she is asleep, and then rustles revenge through her body, playing havoc with her blood sugars.

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Have you ever tried sleeping after eating an entire bag of Jelly Babies, washed down with a litre of full fat coke? I imagine that is what it feels like for Molly.

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Sleep leaves her defenceless, unable to wash the sugar away with water, too still to burn off the excess high with exercise.

She wakes in the morning, still tired, confused as to why she feels like she only just climbed into bed. We explain she was high, all night, we tell her that her body stayed awake waging war with Type 1 Diabetes.

She looks at me, downcast, eyes desperate for a good nights sleep. She doesn't need me to tell her that her body didn't win the war, she knows too well that the battle continues.

What you don't see is the heat hiccuping into her insulin regime. We are too new to this, we lack understanding of how quickly to change her levels, to alter her sensitivity, to prevent her dropping too low.

Three hypos yesterday, almost an hour of her day spent wobbling, shaking, crying without reason. Another hour where I felt I had failed her in her care.

You see a seven-year-old girl with Type 1 Diabetes, suffering through the heat, trying to manage a chronic, life changing condition.

I see a warrior.

Jane is a working mum of three and has great hair. One of these things may not be true.

Blogs at: Northern Mum

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