The Life of a Cynical Peach

The worst thing about being a parent with a chronic illness is that when I'm not doing well, my kids also suffer.

As anyone who is a parent will tell you, when we can't give our kids everything we feel bad, especially when its due to circumstances beyond our control. Yesterday my insulin pump malfunctioned. It wasn't delivering the insulin I needed as it should have been, for over two hours. With the insulin pump being without the few units the pump delivers hourly can have bad consequences because you have no "long acting" insulin onboard like you would if you were on daily injections. My body had no insulin for those hours. As a result around noon I started feeling terrible. I changed my pump site and refilled the cartridge (which solved the problem), but the effects of high blood sugar can linger for hours. When your blood sugar goes high it becomes more and more resistant insulin which can make it harder to bring high blood sugar down.

 My blood sugar was over 500, around 400 points higher than it should be. Since I've had diabetes for over 20 years, I know how to handle this situation without needing to call my MD or go to the emergency room. I took extra insulin, increasing the amount I take to cover the resistance and laid down on the couch. I felt nauseous, dizzy and so thirsty I drank almost an entire gallon of Kool-Aid in minutes. This is bad enough if you're just taking care of yourself but while all this is going on I have two small kids I'm taking care of.

My son wanted me to read to him- I was so nauseous I didn't even want to talk. My daughter wanted chocolate milk- walking to the kitchen to get it made me feel so dizzy I was going to pass out. Finally I turned on the TV in living room for the kids and laid back down on the couch and closed my eyes. I didn't sleep, because I wanted to be able to know what the kids were doing, but I rested. When my husband came home from work, I went to sleep and slept for a greater part of the evening. Time I would have normally been with my kids. Even today, the next day, I'm not 100 percent on my game.

I feel horrible when my disease effects my kids. I couldn't be there 100 percent for them. Sure their basic needs were met and I  made sure they were safe, but I couldn't fully engage with them.

This makes me feel awful.

I don't want my diabetes to affect my kids, but its been affecting them since before they were born. I recently talked about this with someone and she told me that at some point you have to accept that you did the best you could in that situation and not to feel guilty about it. She told me that my circumstances are different and when I'm ill what's normal for a parent without a chronic illness is not normal for my family. I know she's right, I know that I'm a good parent and that my kids are two of the most loved kids in the world. I never knew if would ever be able to have kids because of my diabetes and now that I have two healthy ones I feel like the luckiest parent in the world. But I feel bad that their lives are still affected by my illness.

 Diabetes and parenting isn't all bad- my 4-year-old son knows what an insulin pump is and why I need one. My 2-year old will come up to me when I'm laying on the couch with high blood sugar and ask "you okay mommy?" They have learned a lot from my diabetes, just as I have. My diabetes is a part of who I am- it makes up my past, present and unfortunately for now, my future. If I could change all that would I? I don't know. All I know is right now I'm doing the best I can with what I've been dealt.