My Gramps

On April Fool's Day I always think of my Grandpa. He passed away on April 1 12 years ago. He was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes when he was 30 years old.

I called him Gramps. He was funny and flirty and talked to everyone everywhere he went. He introduced me to Beverly Hills 90210 - before it was trashy, of course. The first time I ever kissed a boy I ran over to his house and told him before I told anyone else. It didn't seem strange to me that he had diabetes - he'd had it all my life. I was used to him watching what he ate and seeing his insulin bottles in the fridge and giggling in the background while he dropped his drawers for my Grandma to give him his insulin shot in his rear end.

My Gramps had pretty much all the bad side effects of diabetes that you can have: neuropathy, heart attack, eye problems. He spent the last few years of his life on dialysis and almost had his foot amputated but he passed away before that happened.

My brother and I went to see him two days before he died. When we walked into his room he squeezed my hand and said "Hi" and smiled and that is the last thing I ever heard him say. He died the next night when I was on the elevator in the hospital on my way up to spend the night with him in his room.

So when my husband called me on the phone after taking Emma to the pediatrician because we were worried about all her strange symptoms - I was in the hospital after just having our third little baby - he called me and said, "Emma has diabetes and they are admitting her to the hospital right now." And all I could say was, "No. No. No," because all I could think about was my Grandpa and the many struggles he had through the years and the long, painful time he had passing from this life.

Our diabetes educator was quick to tell me that it didn't have to be that way for Emma. That if we took good care of her those side effects wouldn't occur - no pressure right?! It is true that my Gramps didn't take good care of himself for many years - drinking and smoking and eating with abandon. So that comforted me, but I still had those bad memories with me.

This weekend, though, restored even more hope to me. My Grandma came to visit and she told me more about the care that was available when my Gramps was diagnosed. They didn't have glucometers at all, so they only used urine testing. They would find out what his sugar had been like an hour or more before, and she said that there was a hundred point variable in either direction. Even at the time he passed away they didn't have near the equipment available that we have now. She also talked about how when her mother was first a nurse in the 1920's, diabetes was a death sentence for children. They didn't have insulin for children and that was just it.

After talking with her I see how much progress has been made and hope for much more progress in the coming years. I truly see how it DOESN'T have to be that way for Emma. And sometimes I think I can feel my Gramps, watching over Emma and taking special care of her.