The Emotional Impact of Diabetes
Diabetes is a very dangerous disease, which can be a matter of life and death, both physical and emotional. Unless someone is diabetic, or very close to someone who is, they do not realize how life changing this disease can be. I believe one of the reasons this is, is because so many people this website are diagnosed with diabetes; that somewhere down the line, the seriousness of the disease, in people’s minds, have diminished.
Diabetes is a very serious and scary chronic illness. It is totally life changing for those diagnosed. Eating becomes literally a matter of life and death. And the way a person is use to eating is usually changed drastically.
The emotional stress one goes through seems to get ignored and lost in the endless information and directions of how to now live your life. This is not just merely staying alive – it’s trying to stay alive without ending up blind, on kidney dialysis, with severe nerve damage, or amputation, just to name a few.
My life was drastically affected by diabetes twelve years ago when my son, who is now 23, was just eleven years old, and diagnosed with juvenile diabetes.
He has always been hyperactive, so even when he was sick, he was active. I started to notice he was looking a little pale and losing weight, even though he ate constantly. I made him a doctor appointment for the next opening, which wasn’t until a month away. All of a sudden he started wetting the bed. The urine had a very strong odor. He also started complaining of headaches. At first I thought the complaints, was just an excuse for the eleven-year-old to stay out of school. But when they became so severe, I knew they were real. The second day his headaches were so severe, he stayed home from school. He presented no other symptoms, but he slept all day long. This was enough to definitely make me realize something was extremely wrong. I got out my diagnosis health encyclopedia books and after a few hours, I came down to two diagnosis, kidney trouble or diabetes, (this was before I became a nurse, so I was going only by his symptoms and the words on the page). It was about 6:30 at night, when I told my husband something was terribly wrong and I was taking our son to the emergency room.
When we arrived at the emergency room, my son had a hard time keeping his eyes opened. We were finally called to the back, where they started running several tests. Sure enough he was diagnosed with Type 1 Juvenile Diabetes. His blood sugar was well over 600. Normal blood sugar levels range from 90-110. The reason he was sleeping so much was because he was trying to slip into a diabetic coma. The doctor said that if I didn’t bring him in when I did, he would have went into a coma that night. They admitted him to ICU and kept a vigil on him for three days as insulin was delivered through IV. That was the day our lives changed forever; especially my eleven-year-old son’s.
It was over-whelming. Three main meals a day and three snacks a day; mandatory, with a minimum of two shots daily for the rest of his life. To say we were under stress, would be putting it mildly. My son put on a brave face, but about the fourth day after he was diagnosed, I had a heart to heart with him. The poor baby thought he had brought the diabetes on himself and was being punished for something he said. Meanwhile, my nine-year-old at home was going through her own personal hell. After speaking to her, I found out she was scared to death that he was going to die, and that she was next. This came from two children whose parents did talk to them and tried to explain everything to the best of their ability.
