Diabetes is a Team Sport
Burn out in diabetes is a real thing. For the person with the disease and their caregivers. It's an endless cycle of test, bolus, eat, repeat. It becomes second nature but at times can feel overwhelming.
Children who are given too much responsibility at too an early an age are especially prone to it. I once read that letting a child manage their own diabetes care is akin to allowing them to manage the household finances and investment responsibilities. Except poor diabetes management has the potential to cause serious physical harm.
We take a team approach to diabetes care in our home. We share responsibility for checking, counting carbs, changing pump sites, etc.. Dave and I take turns getting up for night checks, staying home with her on sick days, and strategize on how to keep her life as normal as possible. The control-freak in me maintains full responsibility for materials management and scheduling but nobody is fighting me for that title.
We're the lucky ones. Too many families are divided on this front. Expecting too much from their children, challenging one another on proper care or just taking a complete hands-off approach and placing the entire burden on one parent.
Having a supportive spouse, family, friends, and school makes it all that much easier to play with this crazy hand we've been dealt.
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