Aunty Holly's Medicine

Every now again, as a parent you witness your kids do something amazing. Something you would have never expected. Something that fills you with pride and awe. A video popped up on my Facebook feed a couple of weeks back, of a baby doing CPR on a first aid dummy - it's quite amazing if you haven't seen it. Days later, David finds a Calpol syringe and sits on the floor, poking it into his belly. It took me a minute to realise what he was up to but I then saw what it was...

Weeks after David was born, my little sister was admitted to hospital and diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes. It's a pretty rubbish diagnosis for anyone to get, with 4-times daily jags into her stomach, with countless finger pricks a day to check her glucose levels, as well as having to count the carbs in every morsel of food. But what I think my little sister - the boys Aunty - finds the hardest to live with is the misconceptions of diabetes that it seems the majority of the population has.

I'll be first to admit that before Holly's diagnosis, I too never fully understood diabetes, nor what the actual differences between Type 1 and Type 2 were. But when she got the diagnoses, I wanted to know, not just for my own understanding but so I could make sure the boys grew up with an understanding of why Aunty Holly had to have medicine daily and what the little beeping machine she had to check her blood is for.

John has a good understanding already, quietly watching as Holly does her insulin, knowing not to jump on her whilst she does. David, being so young, I assumed would not yet be aware of what diabetes is or that Aunty Holly even has it. And yet there he was, with his very own "insulin," doing exactly as his Aunty does.



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