The Tree

Yes, the title has nothing to do with the post.  I just loved the photo I took of the area where we waited out the low.

Over the past 10 years, diabetes, for the most part, has become routine in the day-to-day, the hour-to-hour, the meal-to-meal, the night-to-night.  It blends in and really, at times, doesn't seem to be too big of a deal until it stops your child in his tracks.  When it stops Joe from walking, well... that is one of the times t1d kinda becomes a big deal; I can't just pop him some sugar, scoop him up, and lug him around like I could when he was 3, 4, 5, 6..or even maybe when he was 7 or 8.

A few weeks ago...on Father's Day..

We had set out on a family hike with my sister and my brother and their families.  The day was warm, uncomfortably so.  Joe had recently checked a blood glucose and his number was in the high 100s.  He ate a snack.  We walked.  We then played at the water's edge of Lake Champlain.  The thought of a low fleeted through a brain synapse or two, but then drifted away as I enjoyed this time with my siblings.  Joe seemed upbeat, as he skipped rocks across the lake's surface.

When we readied ourselves to leave, to hike back to our cars, it hit and the quickly and resolutely stated "I feel low," was heard.

He was 40 something.  Skittles were munched.

He stumbled, trying to take a few steps to start the long, hot walk back to the cars.  He wasn't gonna make it just yet.  I knew from the way the first step went, we would have to wait this one out.  It was gonna be a bad low.  The family, there were 10 of us, moved on and started on the hike.  I directed Joe to some shade.  He plopped down and then proceeded to lay face down in the grass.  I gave him another fistful of Skittles.

He didn't complain of the discomfort the low caused him.  His focus was on missing time with his family.  He repeatedly attempted to sit up to ready himself for the walk, but was unable to do so.

He rarely complains of the physical discomforts associated with t1d.  Over the years, it has been the stopping or the waiting that have bothered Joe.  Diabetes care appears seamless to outsiders, but trust me there is way too much stopping and waiting involved; especially for a young, growing, active boy.  Stopping to check a blood sugar, to count carbs, to bolus, to do a site change.  Then there is the waiting.  Waiting for a low to release it's hold on your body.  Waiting for a stomachache to subside after a bad pump site and the subsequent ketones.  Diabetes can most certainly be a tester of one's patience.  And on this day, it tested Joe's.

Explaining the psychology of a low in Joe's day-in-the-life.