Why Me??
My son Cole was diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes
when he was 13 months old. I always knew the question would come, but it
had been over 4 years (he is 5 now) and it had not been asked. I hoped
that maybe since he has known nothing but diabetes, maybe he wouldn't ask, but
I was wrong.
For over 4 years, Cole has known nothing but injections,
pump site changes, Dexcom sensor changes, finger pokes, eating when he was not
hungry because of a low, wanting to eat when he couldn't because he was too
high. This has been his life. This has been our life. Cole is
our first and only child. We had no idea that something was really wrong
with him. When he started eating solid foods, he ate more than my 6 years
old nephew at the time. We thought he was just a great eater.
He also drank a ton of water, but to us we were happy that he drank so
well. He soaked through diapers, but we assumed that was because of all
the water he drank. We had no idea something else was going on. He
really had no other symptoms. He was a big boy, 100 percentile for his
weight, 75 percentile for his height and that never really changed. On
his 1st birthday
he was sick. It seemed just like a mild cold. Nothing crazy.
He just seemed not as happy as normal and a little on the tired side. He
got better and a few weeks later he seemed to get sick again. He was in
daycare so we didn't think this was abnormal for him to be sick again.
The day he was diagnosed he refused to eat. This was a BIG clue something
was not right, he never refused food. Then his breathing got worse.
The doctor had me bring him to her. She worked a long time trying to
figure out what was wrong and stated she could smell ketones on his
breath. She had the nurse check his blood sugar. 482 was the
reading. An ambulance was called to take Cole to the nearby Children's
Hospital.
His doctor never said diabetes to me. You would think
with the blood sugar of 482 I would have realized it but I didn't. I knew
482 wasn't good, clearly, we were on the way to the hospital in an
ambulance. It wasn't until the paramedic asked me if I knew what was
going on. I stated that I didn't. He said he couldn't officially
diagnose Cole because he was not a doctor, but when I got to the ER, they would
tell me that my son had Type 1 Diabetes. I was so ignorant to what that
all meant. My Sergeant at work had Type 1, he had been diagnosed a few
years prior. I knew he had to check his blood glucose and give himself
shots before eating but that's all I knew. If it hadn't been for my son
being diagnosed I feel I would still have no idea as to what Type 1 Diabetes
really is. I know the world is full of people who are just like I was,
clueless about Type 1 Diabetes. For that reason, we try to educate as many
as we can.
Before Cole was on the pump people were always asking what
we were giving Cole injections for. People are still curious when they
see us check his finger or when they see his pump or CGM. We don't hide
it, we take care of his diabetes needs wherever we might be. For the most
part people are genuinely curious and eager to learn. So, we like to
educate. Cole always wants to show off his Dexcom to people and
show his pump sites too. To me it seemed that he just accepted diabetes
as part of his life. He never asked about it.
Then the day came, we had been out to lunch and I was
pulling into our driveway. Cole unbuckled himself from his car seat and
proceeded to open the car door. He paused, closed the car door, and sat
back down. I turned around to look at him to see what was going on and he
stared at me a moment and said, "why did God pick me to have
diabetes? I see lots of other kids and they don't have diabetes, so why
me?" It was a question I asked myself several times. Why him?
I thought for a minute and responded by telling him that God must know how
strong and brave he is and that God knew he could handle it. That God
must know that he would be there to help other kids with diabetes be strong and
brave just like him. He looked at me and said "oh okay" and
jumped out of the car and started to play. I, on the other hand, sat in
the car for a second trying to stop the tears that had been forming in my
eyes. I took a deep breath, jumped out of the car, gave him a hug and we
went inside to play a game.
On Cole's 1 year diaversary I made a video to help educate people about Type 1
and show them what our first year with Type 1 was like. The next year I
did the same. For the past 2 years, Cole and I made silly diabetes parodies.
Last year we started to post more frequently to our YouTube channel
"Funboy Coco."
We post videos about life with diabetes and tips and tricks we have learned
over the years. These are our Type 1 Tuesday videos. We also post
daily vlogs that of course include life with Type 1. When Cole was first
diagnosed we started a Facebook page, "Operation Dad-Life with Type 1
Diabetes,” while going through the process of getting a diabetic alert dog. Now
it's just a page where we post about life with diabetes and Bella, Cole's
diabetic alert dog. Cole was the one to ask about doing a YouTube Channel and I
figured why not. We have been able to learn so much from the online
community over the years, from Facebook support groups, to our local JDRF
friends and through sites like Beyond Type 1. We hope that we can help
those that are new to Type 1 Diabetes and help educate those that know nothing
about Type 1 Diabetes through our YouTube channel and our Facebook page.
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