Recently, I read, with great interest, a story about a woman who was completely stressed out that her child’s pump malfunctioned. She went on and on about how her entire life was now upside down and she had been fighting with all sorts of people on the phone to get it fixed immediately and she was in a rant about how she and her child would EVER survive. I’m reading this entire scenario on-line and finally I wrote:
Why not just give your child shots until the pump situation is corrected?
Yesterday I wrote about the possibility of failure in technology. Today I ask; should there be a failure in technology, what is your back-up plan? What is your ”B” plan? What is your alternative course of action when ‘life’ hits? Have we become so dependent on our world of technology that we just assume it will always be okay?
That is a mistake.
Years ago I read about a mom who was stressing about what could happen at an airport with her child as they went through security. She was overly stressed about all of the possible airport scenarios of bells and whistles going off, and pat-downs, and ‘all of the stress’ that would be added to her child’s life upon reaching security.
I wrote to her: “Why wait?” I then suggested that she run a few scenarios at home before she got to the airport. I suggested that she not call it a game but rather tell her daughter what happens at an airport; take a tool from the garage that she may not recognize that sort of resembles a wand and have her lift up her arms and do what a TSA officer might do. Do that once every two or three weeks until it is time to actually leave and it will be second nature to her.
The same with a back-up plan. Now if you wait until such time that the pump breaks, the stress level will already be on the rise. In advance; this weekend; today; all in advance; show your child what will be used if you have to inject insulin because the pump does not work. Make them part of the process ‘in the calm’ and not in an overly charged stressful situation; you will lose that battle. Open it, look at it, show them and instruct your child without inflection when showing the needle at the end of ‘a pen’ syringe. Discuss it and make it normal.
Kids will be fine with most things as long as they are not being shocked or surprised with it; so go over back-up plans in advance of when they will be needed. You will be glad you did.
With that in mind, also run a few ’emergencies’ with your spouse/partner with expired emergency glucagon. DO NOT wait for the first time you use it to be in the case of an actual emergency, you will be glad you ‘rehearsed’ that scenario as well.
No one opens in a show on Broadway without much rehearsal to get it right; ‘rehearsing’ in life for REAL situations is so much more important, don’t you think?
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Those of us in the Northeast are buckling down for the incoming major storm. Again. This time; snow. We will cope. We are ready.