The Emotional Impact of Diabetes
by Tracey Wilson
Unless someone is diabetic, or very close to someone who is, they do not realize how life
changing this disease can be. I believe one of the reasons for this is because so many people are diagnosed with
diabetes that somewhere down the line the seriousness of the disease, in people's minds, has
diminished.
Diabetes is a very serious and scary chronic illness. It is totally life changing for those
diagnosed. Eating becomes literally a matter of life and death. And the way a person is use to eating is usually
changed drastically.
The emotional stress one goes through seems to get ignored and lost in the endless information
and directions of how to now live your life. This is not just merely staying alive - it's trying to stay alive
without ending up blind, on kidney dialysis, with severe nerve damage, or amputation, just to name a
few.
My life was drastically affected by diabetes twelve years ago when my son, who is now 23, was
just eleven years old, and diagnosed with juvenile diabetes.
He has always been hyperactive, so even when he was sick, he was active. I started to notice he
was looking a little pale and losing weight, even though he ate constantly. I made him a doctor appointment for
the next opening, which wasn't until a month away. All of a sudden he started wetting the bed. The urine had a
very strong odor. He also started complaining of headaches.
At first I thought the complaints were just an excuse for the eleven-year-old to stay out of
school. But when they became so severe I knew they were real. The second day his headaches were so severe he
stayed home from school. He presented no other symptoms but he slept all day long.
This was enough to definitely make me realize something was extremely wrong. I got out my
diagnosis health encyclopedia books and after a few hours I came down to two diagnoses, kidney trouble or
diabetes, (this was before I became a nurse, so I was going only by his symptoms and the words on the
page).
It was about 6:30 at night when I told my husband something was terribly wrong and I was taking
our son to the emergency room.
When we arrived at the emergency room, my son had a hard time keeping his eyes opened. We were
finally called to the back, where they started running several tests.
Sure enough he was diagnosed with Type 1 Juvenile Diabetes. His blood sugar was well over 600.
Normal blood sugar levels range from 90-110.
The reason he was sleeping so much was because he was trying to slip into a diabetic coma. The
doctor said that if I didn't bring him in when I did, he would have gone into a coma that night. They admitted
him to ICU and kept a vigil on him for three days as insulin was delivered through IV.
That was the day our lives changed forever; especially my eleven-year-old son's.
It was overwhelming. Three main meals a day and three snacks a day; mandatory, with a minimum
of two shots daily for the rest of his life. To say we were under stress, would be putting it mildly.
My son put on a brave face, but about the fourth day after he was diagnosed, I had a heart to
heart with him. The poor baby thought he had brought the diabetes on himself and was being punished for something
he said.
Meanwhile, my nine-year-old at home was going through her own personal hell. After speaking to
her, I found out she was scared to death that he was going to die, and that she was next. This came from two
children whose parents did talk to them and tried to explain everything to the best of their ability.
These emotional issues are just as important to deal with as the physical disease itself. The
emotional needs must be addressed. Not only the needs of the person diagnosed, but the whole family, and if it's
a child, this includes the parents.
If you are living with diabetes, please make sure you get the emotional help you so need and
deserve. It's absolutely a necessity. You may have to live with diabetes, but make sure you have it under
control, and that it does not control you. After all, it's a matter of life and death - both physical and
emotional.
About the author:
Tracey
Wilson is an author on http://www.Writing.Com/ which is a site for Creative Writers. Many of Tracey's writings can be found at http://www.writing.com/authors/intuey
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