One year

One year.

It has been one year since Richard O's diagnosis with Type 1. One year since our world changed forever.

In that year, he's had around 3,800 finger pokes, 900 injections of insulin, and 80 pump site changes. As much as I hate every single needle stick or lancet poke, I have learned to regard them as life-saving necessities. I have also learned that Richard O. has come to accept these, as well. His resiliency and adaptability continue to amaze me.

In one year, I have gotten used to scrupulously weighing and measuring everything that Richard O. eats. I have memorized the number of carbohydrates in an astonishing number of foods -- I know that a single Oreo cookie has 8 carbs, an ounce of soymilk has 1.25 cabrs, and that a 90 gram piece of banana has 18 carbs. I can eyeball a 1 or 2 oz serving of just about anything, but I continue to measure anyway, because I am desperate to keep his numbers in range as much as possible. I have learned a lot about the glycemic index, and how to use it in meal planning to keep Richard O. from spiking.

I have learned that despite my best efforts, sometimes this disease will get the better of us, and his blood glucose numbers will be out of whack. I have learned a little bit about the effects of stress, excitement, illness, exercise, growth, and teething on his blood glucose levels, though sometimes I realize that I have no good answers. I have learned to manage his disease one number at a time, and to step back occasionally to observe patterns. I have had to learn how not to panic.

The cost of managing this disease well is steep. Though we are fortunate to have pretty good medical insurance coverage, there is no denying that our medical costs have significantly increased over the past year. Here is a rough estimate of what Richard's supplies would have cost us if we paid OTC prices:

12 vials of Novolog ------------$960
6 vials of Lantus---------------$510
1000 syringes-----------------$150
3800 test strips---------------$3600
80 pump site changes---------$2400
80 pump site reservoirs-------$300
2 glucagon kits----------------$160
100 blood ketone strips-------$350
Animas 2020 insulin pump ---$6000

Over $14,000....just to keep my kid alive! And that doesn't include the ER visits and hospital stays that we endured last year, or even his appointments with the endocrinologist and the rest of his diabetes team at Joslin. And then there's all of the alcohol swabs, IV prep swabs, occlusive dressings and EMLA cream for numbing infusion sites, lancets, and other stuff. Diabetes is a major cash cow for pharmaceutical companies -- so they have little motivation to find a cure for the disease.

I have learned how to find fellow parents who are struggling with diabetes in children. Thank goodness for the Internet! I don't know what I would have done if I hadn't found my friends at Type1parents.org. They have literally saved my sanity, and given me so much good information and advice.

So yeah, we've survived year one with diabetes. Year two will be about fighting back by raising money to help find a cure and continuing to learn more about managing this disease well....and kissing and hugging and loving my son -- a lot -- because we managed to get a diagnosis before he succumbed to the effects of DKA.