He stood in the doorway as I put on my shoes and lifted my jacket over my shoulders. He was wearing an "I Love NY" t-shirt and red shorts with his insulin pump clipped just off-center - tubing dangling haphazardly and looping like a roller coaster.
"In school we made these bowls out of clay and we took leaves and we pressed them down into the bowl …"
He spoke.
"And then we took this gooey paste stuff and we painted it all over the bowls …"
But I didn’t hear him.
I nodded and said "uh-huh" but I didn’t hear him. My eyes were fixed on his insulin pump clipped to his waist band. It’s been six years since his diagnosis, but today … today, I can’t believe he has diabetes.
"After we were finished, Mrs. Hanna put the bowls in a kiln and they came out really shiny. I used red leaves for mine, but you could really use any color you wanted …"
Today the pump looked to me as grave as a feeding tube and as heavy as a brick. Today the pump looked like it had grown overnight. Today, Charlie looked to me like a sick kid. I can’t believe he’s wearing this thing. This hard mechanical thing that puts lines in his skin and presses sharp against his bone. This thing that he drags around like an anchor.
"I used red leaves because … "
"I don’t know, I just like red."
And he smiled.
Yeah...I know it well- then the smile that shows he is OK and it is all worth it...the smile that will always melt your heart and make you wonder why him...but it is all worth it...
This one made me cry Carey...
This broke my heart. I can't tell you how often I think of my mother and father and how difficult diabetes was for them. Charlie will grow up, and I bet he'll think the same thing. And then he'll think "How lucky I am to have parents that let me NOT worry." And he'll remember making that bowl - more than he'll remember all of the hard d-related things. Trust me on that.
I read your post at least 10 times today, I guess that the truth is that I have had the same experiences. Last night my daughter was laying on the couch and her pump was dangling onto the floor. I kept staring at it, pink and shiny and connected to my beautiful child. I told her to pick up that pump, like it was something that she carelessly threw on the floor...then a small annoying voice in my brain said - oh yeah if she gets gets up the pump will follow - it's attached. Then she started asking me what would happen if she stopped taking insulin... I told her the truth. I'm pretty sure she already knew the answer to that one.
Most of the time we seem to take diabetes in stride-it's just part of our lives. Every now and then, though, the bugger slaps you across the face and you realize that your child has a chronic, incurable, life-threatening disease. You can't ever not manage diabetes. You can do less checks, correct less frequently, keep less data, but you can never ever ever stop managing it. Or your kid will die.
I describe diabetes to non-D parents like this: It is as if you have been given balls and told to juggle them. You ask when you can stop juggling and are told, "Never."
Oy, sorry for the downer comments. It's one of those days...
But LOOK at that SMILE!!! Trust me mand Nicole, Carey.. Charlie will remember that bowl-making expereince, and the fact that he has a DAddy whoi oistens to him and cares for him, much more than the dlife drama.. I work with kids and I am a type one for 41 years..Charlie is going to make it through just fine.. He is a child who has diabetes...but look at that SMILE..does not look like a SICK kid to me!!!
God Bless,
Brunetta