Informing Others About Diabetes

My husband rarely tells people about his diabetes, but he has learned that some people should know. Everyone who is diabetic should wear a diabetes bracelet or have some type of card or voice alert system to let others know in case of a medical emergency. If possible, the identifier should indicate whether you're type 1 or type 2. My best bet for convincing Brian to keep something is in his wallet so that someone going through it in an emergency may find it.

His boss also knows that he's diabetic, as does his officemate. I think it's important for people to know in case something happens. If people seem interested, he gives them a rough idea of how a diabetic seizure would like, and we've found that people are very understanding of his medical needs once he lets them know what is going on.

Of course, everyone in our families know what to expect if something ever should happen to him. As soon as our son is old enough, he will know how to dial 911. He's only one, so obviously he's too little now. We will tell him early about the diabetes and about what to do if Daddy passes out. We just have to determine the gentlest way to tell him as we do not want him to be afraid of the illness.

My husband keeps a testing kit at my parents' house and at his parents' house. Because we live much closer to his family, he also keeps a NovoLog pen there. He wants to be able to live his life and not have to panic if he forgets to bring his insulin. Retaining normalcy is very important for Brian, as he wants to run his life and not have his diabetes do it for him.

Finally, I know all about what diabetes can do. The first couple of times he had lows during the night, I was terrified. I remember being very angry at him with the first low he had after I got pregnant. Lows can - and should - be avoided. He has them every three or four months, so they're not common now. I know from the thrashing around he does that I should wake him and help him get to the kitchen. Although he thinks it's unnecessary, I always stay with him a few minutes because I don't want him to pass out after I leave.

Dealing with diabetes does mean knowing who to tell and how much to tell them. When Brian first got the disease, he wanted absolutely no one to know. Now he's lightening up. After all, he's okay with this blog and reads it on occasion. That's a huge step for him.

NovoLog

The bolus insulin that Brian takes is called NovoLog. Bolus insulin is what controls your blood sugar from the food you eat. Brian has taken Humulin, Humalog, and now Novalog. He switched because Novalog was the preferred insulin through our insurance company.

It is important to take bolus insulin about half an hour before you eat. That gives the body time to begin processing it, so that when you begin eating, your body is prepared to keep your blood sugar at a normal rate.

Brian's also found that the number of units that he has to take varies with the type of food he's eating. For example, if he has something processed, he takes about a unit for every 6 grams of carbs in his food. For whole grains, he takes only one unit for 9 grams. It took him a really long time to make that determination, but he worked with it until he got it.

Bolus insulin is a God-send for diabetics. It keeps him from having to count every carb throughout the day and account at breakfast for what he might have for supper.

Lantus

My husband's basal insulin is Lantus. That means that he takes a Lantus shot every night to control his blood sugars throughout the day. Theoretically, if someone's taking the right amount of basal insulin, then that person's blood sugar would be in the normal range constantly if he or she didn't eat anything.

The interesting thing about Lantus is that the amount Brian takes changes from time to time. He started out on 18 units per night and he’s up to about 25 now. Still he goes through times when he's not taking as much at night.

The most important thing about Lantus as we've learned is to take it at roughly the same time every night. Because it's affecting the base blood sugar level, it's important not to overlap the times. So if you took it at 10 p.m. one night and 8 p.m. the next night, you would get twice the dose for 2 hours, which could cause a low. That's because the body absorbs the basal insulin throughout the day, so you're getting a dose of it constantly.

Living With Fear

One of the things that we rarely talk about with diabetes is the fear that it causes for caretakers. Although my husband is young - only 26 - I think of the toll diabetes is taking on his body more often than I should. I know that I think about it more often than he does.

Every time he mentions having a high, I think about the damage being done to his internal organs. Every night he thrashes around from a low, I think about the possibility of a coma were we not to catch it in time.

Living with diabetes means living with fear. Unlike type 2 diabetes, type 1 is virtually uncontrollable with diet. It's not a lifestyle disease; it's the evil side of genetics.

The fear it brings for the spouses of diabetics is one of the worst parts of the disease. It makes me worry when I should be carefree. It makes me grieve now for the time I know I will not have with my husband because of this illness.

Reason for the Spouse of a Diabetic Journal

I started out as the live-in girlfriend of a diabetic. My husband's diagnosis came after we'd been living together for only four months. In many ways, it robbed us of ever having a normal life together.

Now, I am the wife of a diabetic, and its ravages are much more real to me. My husband has gotten much better at taking care of himself over time. He has learned to deal with the day-to-day demands of having diabetes, and his anger has begun to subside.

Being Brian's wife also means being the mother of his son. That fear is one with which I have not deal yet. The thought of my handsome little boy having diabetes and what that would mean to our lives is not something I have permitted myself to consider.

I hope that my blog can help me to continue to heal my own anger at this disease and the hand we've been dealt. I also hope that those of you who are reading it can get some comfort and help in dealing with your own diabetic spouse.

Brian's Diagnosis

My husband is in a growing group of young men who are type 1 diabetics (juvenile onset) but who found out in their 20s. Brian and I met during our freshman year of college. During the first semester of our junior year, he said that he wanted to lose weight. He'd played soccer and tennis from the time he was a child through high school and had put on a few pounds during the first two years of college.

He started losing alright. By the time Christmas break rolled around, he'd lost 40 pounds! The thing was that he didn't know how he was losing so much weight so rapidly. He was constantly thirsty, and he practically lived in the bathroom.

When he went home for Christmas, he finally decided to see his family's doctor because he had a nagging headache that wouldn't go away. When the doctors tested his blood sugar, it was 598!

Yes, you read that right - 598! For those of you new to diabetes, normal is about 90-110 g/dl. Brian's was almost six times the normal range! The doctor called an ambulance. They wouldn't let him drive to the hospital even though it was just down the street because they were afraid he would go into a coma.

Brian stayed in the hospital for 3 days while doctors stabilized his blood sugar. They gave him an initial dose of insulin to bring it down a good bit and then brought it to normal gradually. Bringing it completely down to normal at once would have caused his body to be unstable.

When they got him into normal range, Brian told me that he didn't realize he'd had a headache for so long until he didn't have it anymore.

He went through nutritional and lifestyle counseling, but those sessions were just the beginning of our experience with this disease, which we've lived with now for 5 1/2 years.

Welcome!

If you are the partner of someone who is diabetic, this blog is the spot for you! I'll be updating shortly with information about my own diabetic spouse, our journey together, and how you can make it, too.

Best Wishes,
Brandi