Category Archives: education

Diabetes, education, type 1 diabetes

Now Scotch and Honey I can understand…

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It’s October and for those of us with a family member dealing with Type 1 Diabetes that means….flu shots.  Hands up anyone who has heard one of the following:

1,  “I had a flu shot once…first thing I did when I got home was throw up and spent the next week in bed…never again.”

2. “I’ve never had a flu shot and never had the flu…lots of (insert favourite nostrum from ‘fresh orange juice’, ‘whole bulb of garlic smoothie’ to ‘wearing an old sock around the throat’ here) is all you need.

3. “It’s all a plot by the pharmaceutical companies”

4. “What, don’t you know it will give your kid autism?”  (this is frequently mentioned by people who wouldn’t recognize autism spectrum disorder if it stood in their living room juggling chainsaws….)

Of course this isn’t restricted to those of us who happen to be in the ‘chronic disease’ community.  We just deal with it on an annual basis. New mothers also go through the debate when their little bundles of love face that traumatic first round of immunizations.

When my oldest was a cuddly bundle of promise I dragged myself out to mother/babe groups in hopes of finding human companionship. I had coffee with one uber-mom who sized up my daughter and asked if she’d had her polio immunization. On hearing she was up to date on all her shots, I was directed to change her diaper on the bathroom floor instead of the change table. She might throw weakened polio viruses, you see.  That way she could keep the door closed and dettol the room before her little widgums could be accidentally exposed.

She was concerned vaccinating her boy could either kill him or cause him to be somehow less than perfect due to the big pharma conspiracy.  Matter of fact.

Oh. I see. Gee, look at the time–I have to get home before the line up at the laundry rocks down by the river gets too long….

Fast forward 12 years to when my daughters are in school and whooping cough has hospitalized one of their classmates and several others will be kept at home for  months. The school sent home a notice warning of the Pertussis outbreak in the school and to make sure immunizations and boosters are up to date.

Now I am older than dirt. I admit this. But I remember parents in those days were good little sheep who made sure we were all inoculated against anything for which there was a vaccine. Oddly enough, I don’t recall any Pertussis outbreak occurring the entire time I was in school. Or for many years afterwards.

I do recall reading about it in books or seeing it in movies about pioneer life.  A child coughing to the point of gagging, a sheen of fever; the doctor walking out of the room, dejected, closing the door behind him as we briefly glimpse a weeping woman throwing herself onto the bed clutching at her now silent child.

A bit much? Okay, the mortality rate for Pertussis isn’t as high as, say, being hit by a train but it is substantially higher by a factor of 1000 over the mortality rate of complications from the vaccine. Pertussis also leads to life long complications like asthma, COPD and the certain knowledge your parents are total dumb asses. Okay…that’s more like a complication of adolescence but it continues long into adulthood, providing you survive a childhood in their care.

Having a child with Type 1 diabetes cuts out all the well meaning arguments and any doubts you may harbour about the efficacy of this vaccine mumbo-jumbo. The fact of the matter is even a simple flu can wreak havoc on a person with a compromised immune system. The inability to keep food or fluids down isn’t merely inconvenient: it’s a medical emergency to the diabetic.

So, the bottom line here is that this year’s flu vaccine is available and your local health clinic will be announcing times when to get your flu shot.

As for an inoculation against ignorance…that one hasn’t been perfected yet. I recommend a short, sharp smack upside the head.

If you live in BC go here to find your local clinic and hours http://www.health.gov.bc.ca/flu/

Some other interesting links:

A great blog about infectious diseases and protecting your kids: http://blog.pkids.org/

(this entry about pertussis caught my attention)  http://blog.pkids.org/2010/07/

General information about anything medical but careful about looking at some of the pictures…http://www.medicinenet.com/flu_vaccination/article.htm

The Canadian Gov’t’s 2 cents worth http://www.phac-aspc.gc.ca/im/index-eng.php

And for the Americans: http://www.cdc.gov/flu/index.htm

education, health, JDRF, type 1 diabetes

Looking for a face to put on this thing?

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Every time someone gives me a “poor you” look and asks, in hushed tones, “how is your daughter doing?” – hesitant, as if expecting bad news…I remember it’s just a matter of education.

Cyclebetes 2010—they’re here at Gyro Park, Victoria to dip the wheels of their bikes in the Pacific Ocean. Yes, it’s cliché but if you’d ridden from Halifax, you’d be pretty damn enthusiastic about this kinda cliché too.  Some of the folk here were part of local relay segments, some did the whole shot. Cyclebetes are people with Type 1 or family members of people with Type 1. As the teams go across the country they visit schools for spin competitions and public education. Fund raising is, of course, a big part of their activity but education is also important. Type 1 and Type 2 need understanding, not pity or judgment.

Sebastien Sasseville is the first person with Type 1 Diabetes to reach the summit of Mount Everest. He warmed up with Killamanjaro and is on his way to being a member of the 7 continent club.  In the meantime, you can go to his website to keep track of his activities ’cause I get out  of breath even trying to list them all. Besides, he is gorgeous…his climbing gear does not do him  justice.

Laura Brandes, My Favourite Number,  is the go to person if you’re reaching out to the young adult community. I feel so old saying that but honestly, I am an old fart and the lights go out when I walk into the room. She’s got the energy and the authority and the perspective. She’s my hero too.

Check out Connected in Motion…these are not people who are waiting for permission to live or sitting quietly while science hunts for a cure – life is out there and they have it by the, ah…throat.

Diabetes, education, family, JDRF, Juvenile Diabetes, research

Happy Birthday Dr. Banting

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It’s World Diabetes Day. Our local JDRF Chapter is lighting up the Johnston Street Bridge…but here, for those of you that are still in the dark, here’s the newsletter we sent out about the whole thing – I’m hoping I can upload it with links intact…

blue-hoop-day-november-141 Okay, not exactly what I wanted but click on it and there’s a link to the WDD website… I think it’s all pretty cool ….

education, family, government, JDRF, Juvenile Diabetes, research

putting it in perspective

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1. CVN-78 Gerald R. Ford – first of new class of super-aircraft carrier “Ford Class” – hull laid 2007 – $8 billion (not including $5 billion R&D) will carry >75 fixed wing jets. powered by 2-AIB nuclear reactors.
2. F-35 Lightning II fighter jet under development – cost per jet (in 2006) $83 million.
3. Queen Elizabeth Class carrier – Royal Navy – to replace the Invincible-class light carriers – will be equivalent to US Nimitz class carriers and carry 36 F-35’s. Current estimate on cost of carrier ?3.7 billion – not nuclear powered.
Estimate of JDRF Canada in a request to the Government of Canada of research funding sufficient to bring about a cure for Type 1 diabetes = $125 million.
So next time you see a picture of an aircraft carrier or a fighter jet or even a tank (M1A2 Abrams = $4.3 million) remember it represents money that didn’t cure diabetes or cancer or cystic fibrosis or Alzeheimers or…or….or…
It’s another reason to sniffle when you see a kid selling lemonade to raise money for JDRF

Now I realize we need these advanced weapon systems to protect ourselves from all those other advanced weapons systems out there the bad guys bought at a clearance sale from the people who are designing even newer ones for us but, gee whiz, maybe if we all stopped…Of course, that is just silly, fuzzy headed idealist stinkin thinkin. But maybe if we diverted just a little of the money we spend on thinking up new ways to blow people up better, faster and from further away…?
education, family, health, JDRF, Juvenile Diabetes, research

Time to put my cap back on my head

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for another year, anyway.

The JDRF walk in Victoria is over for this year and all the fund raising pressure at the family level is off for a few months. It isn’t fair, actually, to imply we are pressured to raise money – after all, what kind of parents would we be if we didn’t do whatever we could to help cure our children? The biggest benefit of the walk for a newly diagnosed family is to see just how many other people there are affected by the illness.

That’s one of the other things that never gets listed, just how isolating the experience is at first. You spend days with doctors and nurses, cloistered in a hospital and then spend months sleep deprived, working days in a twilight of worry while you spend nights waking every few hours to test blood sugars and calculating adjustments for insulin doses. Even when you go out, you are huddled with your child in the bathroom, trying to remember the current ratio of short acting and long acting insulins and getting the injections ready. People come in, people go out, they cast quick glances over at mother or father and child, the needles, cartridges, glucometer and can’t figure out what’s happening. The sight of the syringe is usually enough to drive the strangers away. They don’t want to know.

Then, after a few weeks or months of this you walk into a park filled with balloons, music, people dressed up, whole groups of people wearing the same coloured t-shirts declaring “Tommy’s Team” or “Mary’s Minders” or “Team Turbo Tess”…and different companies who have joined in the effort sponsoring tents giving away food or balloons or whatever they think kids would like. It’s a freaking festival in the middle of one of the crappiest moments in a parent’s life!

And you feel safe. You feel part of something rather than walled away from the world. I don’t know of many people who can get through the first hour of that walk without fogging up or crying outright. The demons of guilt, fear, “dear-God-why-me? I-hate-you. Please-don’t-let-my-baby-die-while-I-sleep-in-the-next-room” are chased away by realization there is a future; these people have survived those first horrible weeks and now you will too. After that the idea of raising money doesn’t seem such a bad thing.

And every year when we get our group together and show up it is the same feeling – that rush of finally finding something positive in all this, of not being the only one, of not being alone.

Even people of faith give thanks for a glimpse at God’s plan at some point during the morning. It’s a gift. And when the demons come back – because they will – you have something to cradle in your hand, hold to your heart and cling to in the dark, long nights ahead.