Handing Off Diabetes: The Bittersweet Journey

from Danielle:

When my son came to me at the age of thirteen with his “fantastic” idea, I was taken by surprise. “Mom” he said, “If you pay me a dollar a night, I will gladly get up to check my blood sugar!” I had a mixture of thoughts and feelings immediately overtake me. On one hand, my son was showing great responsibility to want to take over this aspect of his care and I felt proud of him. On the other hand, I felt like maybe he was too young to take on this responsibility and I felt guilty even considering it. Ever since he was diagnosed with type one diabetes at a year and a half, his blood sugar has always been unpredictable at night. I resigned myself to the fact that I would have to get up and test his blood sugar at night, and I had done so for twelve years. It just didn’t seem worth sleeping through the night and having Paul pay the price by having a severe low or waking up with sky-high blood sugar and ketones. But now, here was my son asking to take over what I deemed a monumental task.

“Well” I said slowly as I was waiting for some parental diabetes wisdom to suddenly appear in my mind, “Why don’t you try it for a few nights and see if it’s something you feel you can do? If it feels like too much, then you don’t have to continuing doing it.” Without hesitation Paul said, “Okay Mom, but I don’t think it’s going to be a big deal especially for a dollar a night!”

It didn’t start out very smooth despite the good intentions. He slept through his alarm the first night or at least didn’t hear it despite it ringing for ten minutes. My first thought was “I knew this would happen, he’s just too young” so I got up, turned the alarm off and checked him myself. The next morning, once he realized I had turned off his alarm, I received a stern lecture that went something like this. “Mom, I’m sorry my alarm woke you up but please leave it until I hear it or I’ll never learn to do this.” I agreed and told myself to back off and let him do this.

So every night for the next week at three in the morning, I would hear a very loud beep, beep, beep and I would lie awake listening for what seemed forever for him to get up. Eventually though he would hear it and check his blood sugar but all the noise would wake me up. I would lie there for a long time wondering what his BG was and whether or not he problem-solved the situation correctly. Every morning while he was busy getting ready for school, I would nonchalantly check his meter to see what happened in the night and I realized that he was making great decisions about managing his blood sugar. I guess I had under-estimated all that he had learned about taking care of his diabetes over the years. It seemed like he was ready for this after all.

I would say that I definitely struggled more with handing off this particular diabetes baton than Paul ever did. I felt incredibly guilty that I was letting him do this even though he wanted to. I felt angry that I had to pass this baton on at all because no matter how long Paul has this disease I still hate it with every ounce of my being and would rather not have to equip my child to manage diabetes. Whenever I would tell Paul that I felt bad that he had to do this, he would respond with, “It’s so easy for me to roll over and check my finger Mom and I always fall right back to sleep. It’s really not a big deal.”

It’s our job as parents to care for our kids and that’s why I struggled so much because I felt like somehow I wasn’t caring enough for him by letting him do this. But then a good friend reminded me that it’s also our job as parents to be purposeful about equipping our children as they move towards full independence, and this includes diabetes. It becomes a bittersweet journey of being proud that your child can manage a new diabetes task coupled with the thought that diabetes sucks and it’s stupid that he has to learn this in the first place. I’m not going to lie, it’s still upsetting to me that I even have to equip my son with skills to manage diabetes but if I don’t, he will pay too great a price.

Over the past eight months, getting up at night has become Paul’s regular task. He hears his alarm right away and rolls over to test and I don’t hear it at all anymore. I have taken back the task every now and then, mostly if Paul’s been sick and I feel he needs his sleep, but he’s quick to ask for it back again so he can make his dollar a day.