I bet you really wish you could say that, don’t you?
Imagine a life with no more 504 plans. (for those who are not aware, a 504 plan is a plan created in cooperation with the public school systems in the United States ensuring that our kids with diabetes are ‘looked-after’ in the appropriate manner—a very simplistic definition of a very complex procedure)
Today is one of the biggest days of our child’s life; Rob will graduate high school today and in all of my joy that he has accomplished so many great things and that this will be such a fabulous day; as I sit here I realize: there will be no more 504 plans.
No more cleaning out the nurses office of supplies, no more writing and rewriting a manual to anticipate all of the things that could happen and must be covered, no more two children with diabetes in school, no more class trips and all that means to those who have diabetes (you know all about that), no more endless calls to the nurse-doc-back to the nurse, no more meeting with all of the teachers to discuss ‘diabetes in the classroom” (and make note, our children’s school has been fabulous for the 16 years we worked through 2 kids) and a long, long way since that first day of ‘one of the worst days in our lives’ of school……a million years ago.
The day before Kaitlyn was to start “K”, she and Jill got on the bus to see how the route to and from school would go. We were the last stop before going to school and the first one on the way home so it worked out perfectly
Remember, this was in a day with no pumps, no cell phones, and a long time ago. It all was planned perfectly.
The first day of school the bus picks up Kaitlyn and off she goes to her first day of being a ‘big girl in grade K’. It was timed out and the bus would be dropping Kaitlyn off at 3:10 pm and Jill would meet her, take her in, check her blood sugar and do what was necessary. Jill is THE MOST organized women on earth (and I am NOT exaggerating) and this was all set. Jill walked out of the house to wait for Kaitlyn by the bus stop and ready to hear about her first day of school
3:10 pm……no bus
3:20 pm……no bus(Jill calls the school, they do not know where it is—-what would you be feeling?)
3:30 pm……no bus (are you starting to feel the anxiety)
3:40 pm……no bus
3:50 pm……no bus (2nd call to school–they are looking still…..would you be climbing the walls yet?)
4:00 pm…..no bus
So as you could imagine–day one was a wreck. Turns out the bus got there early and since no one was there, the driver just decided to do the entire route and come back. Kids were screaming and crying, moms were furious, but none more than Jill–our daughter has diabetes and this could have been a real disaster, Kaitlyn was white as a ghost and very upset.
This incident seems like a million years ago and yet, yesterday.
That incident just fueled our desire to be further educated. To have the control of this disease to make sure we did everything we could to minimize its impact in our lives. It served us well and today Rob is leaving high school.
We have all grown enormously over the years in so many aspects. And when it comes to diabetes, on this day, we are all graduating to another level. And THAT is a very good thing.
I am a diabetes dad.
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