Bryan's Thoughts - "A Week Without Knowing"

Like everyone else who had never thought diabetes could strike a loved one or a very young child without notice or warning, diabetes would never have crossed my mind. In a sense, we were slightly relieved of the doctors diagnosis because we immediately thought, diabetes is a very widespread and relatively well known livable disease. The reason I used the term "relieved" was because the entire week prior was of pure hell and worry simply because we had no idea what was going on with our 17 month old little girl. This first week also baffled a couple doctors who had sent us home to treat an ear infection and the flu. Although I'm sure that many other parents have been in our shoes many times prior to our finding, and I'm certain there will be plenty more parents who get scaed out of thier wits wondering what is going on with thier child. I seem to think it is probably normal for parents to feel like we did when we found out it was diabetes. We felt extremely guilty, and we had felt that we were ignorant and had lingering feelings that we had neglected our child because "we should have put 2 and 2 together" and that we should have known because it all made sense once the diagnosis was made. Diabetes is such a well known disease, how could we have been so ignorant to not think of it ourselves.
I think this is a normal way of thinking when someone close to you has been newly diagnosed with diabetes after spending possibly a week or more deathly ill and lethargic. After all, everyone has heard of diabetes, right? ....Probably. But the problem lies within the knowledge that people think they know about the disease. Most people who are introduced with or have a casual discussion about diabetes are simply misinformed and interpret the disease in thier own way. This is a totally normal reaction for someone with no experience or knowledge of the disease. For example, one person who we informed of our daughter being diagnosed with diabetes thought that people with the disease couldn't consume sugar. Diabetes is a very complex disorder and my blog's objective is to inform, teach, learn, and discuss this disease of many complications with everyone, including those parents who may someday face this same situation some day with thier child, so they can get treatment for thier child before things get too far out of hand.
Once we seen "the big picture", things get much easier to manage and understand. While I can say I have learned very much about diabetes, I can still honestly say that there is still a lot for us to learn and many things we still do not understand. We take one day at a time and take advantage of every opportunity and resource that we possibly can.
What you have read in the last few minutes are my thoughts regarding the time which diabetes had crept upon us. I wanted to share those thoughts to put into perspective how other parents felt, may have felt, or may unfortunately feel in the future if they or their children are are ever faced with this disease.
Thanks for reading, and check back soon for my day by day account from day 1 of our daughters illness until we were sent home from our 2 week hospital stay.
Pray
for a Cure

Inform, Stay informed, educate, learn, & listen to help yourself and your child lead a healthy & productive life with diabetes.