Don't take chances with diabetes

Page 22

Dear Readers:

I would like to share my personal experience with diabetes with you. I am a Native woman from Garden Hill, Man. I live in Winnipeg now. My home reserve is approximately 367 air miles north of Winnipeg. I went to a boarding school in Brandon, Man. at age 7 years. I went to Portage La Prairie boarding school at age 14. I have struggled to complete my nursing career.

I have a daughter who has had diabetes mellitus. I pray that I can reach some of you and your children before diabetes or the complications from diabetes set in to your family.

I will begin my story in December 1982. My daughter and I were visiting friends in The Pas in northern Manitoba for the Christmas holidays. During our return trip to Winnipeg, I learned that my little girl was complaining of pain when she went to the bathroom.

As soon as we arrived in Winnipeg, I took her to the Children's Hospital. During her examination I was asked to leave the room. The doctors were taking so long that I had to ask what was going on. My daughter was backing away and afraid of the examination. They were examining her for signs of molestation. I quickly asked them to check her for diabetes. Sure enough when the results came back the doctor in charge confirmed that she had diabetes.

At that time I was so angry at being told that my daughter had diabetes. The diagnosis added to my emotional turmoil. During my little girl's hospitalization, I had time to think about what had happened in the emergency department. You see, diabetes mellitus is a metabolic disorder where the pancreas, an organ located behind the stomach in the abdomen, does not make enough insulin and the insulin that it does make, doesn't work a well as it should.

Insulin is necessary for burning the sugar (also known as glucose) in the body. For that year I had to go for counselling so I could cope with this disease in my child.

My daughter was hospitalized for six days and taught how to use a syringe and how to give 2 different types of insulin by injection. The cloudy insulin works slowly and the clear insulin works quickly in the body. She was taught how her sugar was just sitting at the door of a furnace and the key to the furnace was missing. Her key was the insulin. Like the furnace, the body uses insulin to help sugar get into cells to be used there to make energy. In that way, the sugar levels in the blood are kept at normal levels. My daughter was taught how to check her blood sugar level with a machine at home.

As the mom of a child with diabetes, I always tried to make sure she checked her blood sugar level regularly at home. I made sure that her appointments at diabetic clinic and the eye clinic were always kept. This gave us a chance to ask questions about diabetes. My daughter didn't have any symptoms of her high blood sugar levels and she always thought there wasn't anything wrong with her.

The child with diabetes does not like anyone to know that he or she has diabetes. I always had to encourage my daughter to let someone know about her disease. She finally allowed me to share the information with one of her closest friends.

The doctor encouraged her to go to summer diabetic camp. She always refused. I would tell her that maybe she'd feel better about her diabetes if she went to camp. She would see all the other kids with diabetes, but this didn't mean anything to her. My daughter used to go to all kinds of summer camps. Her best friend used to go with her during the summer. Diabetes changed all that for her.

Whenever my daughter had a cut or a scrape, I would take her to the doctor. Remember when you have diabetes, cuts and scrapes may take longer to heal. My daughter's sores always healed quickly during childhood and I thanked God for that. I also kept close watch for urinary tract and genital yeast infections as these are common in women with diabetes.

We used to check her blood sugar together every morning before breakfast and again before supper in th evening. When she was aged nine to 14 years she was very co-operative. Her teenage years were very tough for me, as you know, teenagers like to rebel. I used to watch her give herself insulin injections every morning. Many times I couldn't monitor her as I would have liked to as I had to work 12-hour shifts at the hospital. I always made sure that we ate just the right amount of food. We followed the Canada Food Guide to have a balanced diet.

Yours truly

Bertha Flett, RN