This year, I offered to come to my youngest son's kindergarten class. His teacher was more than happy to have me stop in and talk to them. I've since spent days thinking how I'm going to approach this. I want them to understand the importance of their role in raising money for the walk. I want to show them what I do everyday.
Today, a new thought hit me. Because this is a younger group, I'm worried about doing something wrong and scaring these kids, yet millions of parents have to explain this to their young child who's been newly diagnosed. For the first time, I had a glimpse of the heartbreak parents go through.
A few years ago, my youngest son, Ben, was diagnosed with Immune (Idiopathic) Thrombocytopenia Purpura, or ITP. Basically, it's a platelet disorder. Doctors couldn't say why he got it, but were reasonably sure the disorder would go away on its own. For a year and a half, my husband and I tried to impress the importance of bike helmets to a four-year-old and tried to explain to his six-year-old brother why they couldn't wrestle.
At best, the disease would go away within a year. Worst-case scenario, Ben would never play contact sports. So every week, I took him for a blood test to measure his platelet count. If the count was low, he would require an IV treatment that lasted six and a half hours. The treatment usually kept his count up for a month or so. I thought at the time how horrible it was for this little boy to be subjected to blood tests and IV's.
What I never thought of was, what I'd do if doctors had told me he had diabetes. Ben didn't understand what ITP was; he only understood the pain that came from a 'bad' platelet count. I doubt he would have understood Juvenile Diabetes. Almost two years later, there is no sign of the ITP. Ben is now your average six-year-old, riding his bike, playing soccer and t-ball without a care in the world.
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