Heather's Story

An Injection of Hope - by Heather Jackson. My son was diagnosed nearly 5 years ago. It’s been a wild ride for sure. At first we were just set on surviving, learning this new way of life, he was too young to understand what was happening to him. I have no doubt in my mind type 1 is unbelievable difficult to live with and not comparable to a parent/carers experience, but having to inflict pain on my child, knowing it’s not optional, with him being too young to understand why I have to do this, was such a difficult thing to navigate alongside the very real and painful grief I felt at the loss of his health. For a number of years I felt stuck in my grief. The first time we did anything that I’d imagined wouldn’t involve type 1 such as the first Christmas after diagnosis, the first school trip, the first children’s party, the first swimming lesson, the first play date etc and then inevitably it dominated my thoughts throughout these experiences, I felt sucker punched. I held it all, so my son wouldn’t have too, whilst no parent would have it any other way, it doesn’t negate it’s toll on your mind. Which I imagine is a small insight into what living with the condition entails. Equally, I became so full of pride at him achieving everything and anything knowing what he would have endured that day or the previous night. I remember the first time he won an achievement at sports day, he’d had 4 hypos throughout the night before and as he crossed the finish line, I could not contain my tears, bursting with pride. The other parents must have watched on in a sort of weird horror because I was crying at my son winning the egg and spoon race. My life felt like it was emotionally mirroring the highs and lows of a CGM graph. As a parent, when your child hurts, you hurt. Type 1 felt like it was a monster that has come to burn our house down and we just had to find a way to let this monster live with us. Over time, as cliche as it sounds, things got different. Im hesitant to say easier or better because in reality I don’t live with type1 and I would not want to speak on behalf of my son. But time has a way of making things integrate into your life in a way that you couldn’t have imagined in those first few years. Type1 is pervasive and always has to be considered in everything my son does, we still have hard days and I’m sure there are harder ones to come. But over these last few years my anger, sadness, overwhelm has grown around the condition and we take things much more in our stride. My son has taught me so much about how to live, his resourcefulness and resilience is really something to be admired and acknowledged. I have such gratitude for insulin, the technology available to us and the fact he is still here and we still get to be together and love each other. What an incredible privilege amongst all chaos a type 1 diagnosis brings. I count every hair on that kids head in a way that I’m not sure I would of if this hadn’t happened. Yeah sure, I’d take it from him in a heartbeat if I could, but for now, that’s not on the cards, so instead we live our life to the full with type 1 in tow, we love each other that little bit harder and we hold onto hope that with the advancements in technology the condition will only become more and more manageable for those who live with it.