I would bet good money that I’m not the only parent whose T1D kid will spend some time this summer at a camp for kids with this disease.
Will has been at Bearskin Meadow for three nights. He’ll be there for another six.
If you ask Will’s dad, he would say that the house feels a little empty without our eldest teasing his siblings and reading on the couch and sleeping in till noon.
If you ask Will’s younger sister, she wouldn’t say much because she’s off at a magical camp of her own where I doubt she’s missing any of us very actively.
If you ask Will’s younger bother, Quentin would say that it’s no fun having to kick the soccer ball against the bounceback instead of the intense games of “soccer tennis” that the sportier Chisholms have been addicted to this summer.
Of course I miss Will. I am a happier person when all three of my kids are content and close-by.
But I will be the first to tell you that every time I walk past the diabetes drawer, when I wake in the middle of the night, each morning I head out to walk the dogs with Quentin—nothing in our hands or pockets but leashes and a poop bag—I feel a tiny sense of freedom, of being buoyed, of thinking that my kid’s off having a great time in a place where he, too, gets to think a little less about this disease.
The fact is, I was startled this morning by how good it felt to pour cheerios into my white ceramic bowl without having to get out a measuring cup.
It was equally as freeing to glance over to see Quentin pouring syrup (far too much) without a tablespoon measure in hand and the 13-times-tables in mind.
I wondered, this morning, why it felt so good.
Here’s what I realized.
Stocking more glucotabs or filling out the medical section on a school form or pulling out the scale to measure cantaloupe at the beginning of cantaloupe season isn’t physically taxing. It doesn’t take any more time than having Aidan’s ice skates sharpened or reorganizing Quentin’s shoes because his feet are growing so quickly.
The issue is this: each time I remember that there are 13 carbs in a crumpet and Will’s having 4 so I need to tell him 52, the problem involves far more than math.
The most minor of T1D tasks means that there rushes to mind—almost always to be tamped down before the thoughts are conscious—concerns and numerical details and feelings of guilt and inadequacy and waves of anger and fear.
As we’ve said many times in this column, a parent of a kid with T1D had to keep these moments in perspective. Most T1D tasks feel exactly as insignificant as they should!
Maybe it was only this morning—now that I’ve gotten relaxed enough not to do a little jig each time I go to bed knowing that *I* don’t have to check Will’s blood sugar at 2 a.m.—when I could let myself feel some of those overwhelming thoughts.
It just feels important to acknowledge that these tasks may have to feel fine, but that none of it, really, is fine at all.
