Debbie's Story

Hi I'm a T1 mum and couldn't be prouder. In May 2018 my son Cam, then 8yrs old started to drink excessively, even hiding bottles of water like an alcoholic. He then started to get a bit more poorly so we took him to our GP, we asked for a diabetes check because the only thing I knew about the condition was thirst. We were told it was viral, twice he was misdiagnosed. Within 48hrs we were in resus, Cam was being violently sick, drifting in and out of consciousness and this is when we were told he was in severe DKA (diabetic ketoacidosis) and he was fighting for his life. He was in HDU for 2 days and hospital for 4 days. He had lost around a third of his body weight. These were the worst days of our lives but he was an absolute star. He took the whole thing in his stride, he dealt with it much better than me. We are now 5yrs in this journey, he's 14yrs old, 5' 9", playing golf whenever he can, goes on sleepovers and has just had his first school trip to France (he loved it, I was terrified). He now has the Libre 3 and omnipod dash which is so much easier than finger pricking and injecting all the time. I can't lie it's not been all plain sailing, the teenage years are proving tricky, hormones, growth spurts and just wanting to be the same as his mates are all obstacles we face on a daily basis but it does get easier. As his mum I wish I could take it away and I still shed a few tears occasionally but he is amazing and he won't let it rule his life. Diabetes lives with Cam he doesn't live with diabetes. He's my hero.