Thankful Thursday Follow-up

Wendy from "Candy Hearts" has 3 beautiful little girls, Addy, Kaelyn, and Maya. Addy was diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes when she was 2 and nearly died at diagnosis because she was in a very severe state of ketoacidosis. I have loved reading her blog over the past 6 months or so. She has a great attitude and wonderful personality. She has very strong spiritual beliefs that have helped carry her through difficult times. I admire that. Since Type 1 is an auto-immune disease, the chances of developing another auto immune disease is more common. To add to her burden of Type 1, Addy was also diagnosed with Celiac Disease this past December. This morning I was trying to catch up on google reader and came across this post. I am going to copy some of it here because it describes how I feel alot of the times too. I'm sure most of us T1 moms can relate. I don't like putting my burden out there on others. I don't want people to be bugged by the rigorous demands of D-life. But, just the same, I wish I could change things but I can't. These demands keep Syd alive.

"I'm sorry if all the drama in my world annoys you. I wish I could get a life that didn't involve diabetes and celiac and figuring out how to manage it all at school. I wish I could get a life that doesn't keep me up every night checking and re-checking blood sugars while trying to troubleshoot these crazy numbers that invade our life. I wish I could get a life that doesn't require learning how to cook gluten free food from scratch -- and then trying to figure out how many carbs are in each bite. I wish I could get a life that doesn't require pump site changes, battery changes, supply changes, prescription changes, tubing changes, insulin changes, basal changes, ratio changes....change, change, change...a life that doesn't constantly revolve around change. It is what it is...and, diabetes or not, I'm quite thankful for all if it. If I didn't have all that stuff cramming my world, I would be mourning the death of my firstborn child. I praise Jesus every day for Addy's life and thank God she's alive."

The Type 1 life does revolve around change and it's not always easy. A must for us all is to have some supportive friends who help to ease those burdens a bit. I know people don't always understand but just having a listening ear is great. Loren and I have been blessed with some really wonderful friends...I know, I know I say that all the time. But I don't think they realize, just in the little things they do, what it means to us. Sometimes public "thank yous" are necessary.

I don't wanna anyone to feel left out but I had to add these pics below of one such friend. Jes is very interested in learning more about Type 1. She didn't have much experience with it prior to our friendship. She really wanted to know how it felt to wear one of Sydney's sites. Of course, Sydney was thrilled at the idea. The other night Loren went out to the movies with a friend of his and Jessie came over for some girl time. She is wanting to learn how to manage diabetes so that when our anniversary rolls around in Nov., she can keep Sydney for us so we can go out. Of course her baby will only be like 2 months old so it's doubtful I will take her up on that offer, but the thought means so much. I have another friend who jumped right into learning how to change syd's sites and give her insulin for the same reason as Jessie, just so we could have a bit of a break if we needed it. The past couple weeks I have had a few more folks express interest in learning how to care for Sydney. I know they don't realize the emotions that well up inside me when this happens because I don't wear my emotions on my sleeve--I wear them on my blog apparently--but it is such a neat feeling to know that, even though our lives revolve around so many obstacles with diabetes, they don't mind and they care enough to want to help out. So thanks guys. I know this is long. I think I wrote this out more for my benefit but somethings just need to be said. The T1 life is hard and I know it's not always easy to stick around when we are dealing with highs and lows and site changes and carb counting/guessing and all the other parts of this life. So gracias.

And to Wendy from "Candy Hearts," you are doing a great job. Don't let people bring you down. We are all given certain challenges in life. Embrace the friends who love you through the challenges and ditch the ones who won't give that to you. There is no "cookie cutter" life and we all need support.

~Jessie and Syd. You can see the excitement on Syd's face because Jessie did this. :-) It made her whole day.

~She was so brave. No tears. ha ha ha