A Diabetes Emergency is Not the Time to Teach Your Child.

There are a few things that you probably should look into if you have a child with diabetes.  The first is if you have just one glucometer in the house, you should look to get one, or even a few more.  If you look around, it probably is not too hard to get one for free from a number of various sites and/or support groups.  If your meter stops working for any reason, it would make much sense to have a spare one.

Do not wait for your child to need something to teach them.  Make sure they are not seeing the spare meter for the first time in a crisis.  When there is stressful situation occurring, your child will latch on to anything unknown and panic even more; so make sure all meters are not foreign to them as well.

Even though I’m sure you have back ups in the car and other places; having one readily available is probably not such a bad thing.  And another thing with meters, you may not have any idea when, or even if, your child uses the spare ones in the house or in the car.  When you change those clocks back an hour or forward an hour…..it’s a good reminder to check everything diabetes, supplies, refills, refrigerator items—–including that expiration on your glucagon; twice a year checking on everything should keep you updated.

Another thing.  If you have a $1.00 to bet, it might be a safe bet that at some point something will happen to your child’s insulin pump.  Let’s say it will be no one’s fault but let’s agree that it very well may happen at some point.  Giving your child a shot should not be so foreign to them that they have a tantrum if the pump breaks.  With insulin pens available, which have so little pain compared to needles, there is no reason for your child to get overly upset should a switch need to be made.

Any thing that your child sees as foreign could be frightening.  I loved the story of the woman who worked it with her doctor that her child received one shot every two weeks or so to supplement a bolus (DO NOT DO ANYTHING WITHOUT CONSULTING YOUR DOCTOR).  So when the there was an incident, and a new pump would take a few days to arrive, her child adapted quickly.

As in all things, it is good to be ready and not wait for the emergency to figure out the antidote.  If you have any tips to help others—-feel free to add them.

The more seamless something is for your child the better you will be, and THEY will be; take steps always to prevent and be prepared for the unknown.  The unknown only stays scary until your child understands it and knows what it’s about; be prepared.

I am a diabetes dad.

Please visit my Diabetes Dad FB Page and hit ‘like’.