Screw the Bad News!
Amy's post on "The Bad News You Can't Use" got me thinking.
Why are we, as diabetics and parents of diabetics, continually bombarded with BAD NEWS about the disease? Is it to scare us and cow us into compliance? Because, I don't know about YOU, but we're testing our son's blood sugars 10-12 times a day~we're pretty damned compliant already. But Amy's post brought back a memory~I remember very, very clearly a thought I had when our son had his first dental appointment after diagnosis.
Summertime is our time to catch up on medical appointments, so I'd already heard from the eye doctor about the risks of diabetic retinopathy and that now he'll have to have a retinal scan every year, etc. His kidney specialist (he has a slight and invisible birth defect where he has an extra-long ureter on one side, increasing the risk of kidney infections~when we first heard about it, it didn't seem like a huge deal, but now that diabetes has entered our lives, WE REALLY HAVE TO WATCH THIS) told us about diabetic nephropathy. And THEN, after 3 lengthy appointments where we were told how diabetes had changed everything, we were sitting there in the dentist's office and I began to hear all the information about diabetes and gum disease.
And I thought, OH SHIT. But in a very resigned sort of way! Like OH MY, YET ANOTHER THING~BUT I'M NOT SURPRISED.
Anyway, I was posting over at Amy's site about how when I felt really down, it helped so much to hear about people who have lived with diabetes for such a long time. People who, in the very early days of insulin, had to sharpen their needles on stones every day~who only found out their blood sugar numbers four times a year. And I linked Amy with this great article about long term Type 1s. Please read it, everybody. Even if you don't have diabetes. It is really inspiring and optimistic, and it puts not just diabetes, but LIFE, into perspective.
Why are we, as diabetics and parents of diabetics, continually bombarded with BAD NEWS about the disease? Is it to scare us and cow us into compliance? Because, I don't know about YOU, but we're testing our son's blood sugars 10-12 times a day~we're pretty damned compliant already. But Amy's post brought back a memory~I remember very, very clearly a thought I had when our son had his first dental appointment after diagnosis.
Summertime is our time to catch up on medical appointments, so I'd already heard from the eye doctor about the risks of diabetic retinopathy and that now he'll have to have a retinal scan every year, etc. His kidney specialist (he has a slight and invisible birth defect where he has an extra-long ureter on one side, increasing the risk of kidney infections~when we first heard about it, it didn't seem like a huge deal, but now that diabetes has entered our lives, WE REALLY HAVE TO WATCH THIS) told us about diabetic nephropathy. And THEN, after 3 lengthy appointments where we were told how diabetes had changed everything, we were sitting there in the dentist's office and I began to hear all the information about diabetes and gum disease.
And I thought, OH SHIT. But in a very resigned sort of way! Like OH MY, YET ANOTHER THING~BUT I'M NOT SURPRISED.
Anyway, I was posting over at Amy's site about how when I felt really down, it helped so much to hear about people who have lived with diabetes for such a long time. People who, in the very early days of insulin, had to sharpen their needles on stones every day~who only found out their blood sugar numbers four times a year. And I linked Amy with this great article about long term Type 1s. Please read it, everybody. Even if you don't have diabetes. It is really inspiring and optimistic, and it puts not just diabetes, but LIFE, into perspective.
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