Diabetes Through the Looking Glass: Seeing diabetes from your child’s perspective
Dr Rachel Besser
Winner of the 2010 Minty Medico-Legal Society Prize: Best Healthcare Book for the General Reader! A childhood diagnosis of Type 1 diabetes can be devastating for the whole family. Parents and children both worry for the future and how diabetes will affect their lives. For parents these concerns can be compounded by not fully understanding what your child is really going through. Dr Rachel Besser, a pediatrician specializing in childhood diabetes, was herself diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes when she was a child. Through her work with families affected by diabetes, she realized that many parents are desperate to understand how it feels to live with the condition, and wonder what they can do to make their child’s experience as positive and uncomplicated as possible. Combining her own experience with interviews with children and adults who share their stories, Dr Besser provides an illuminating insight into what it feels like to grow up with diabetes. Covers: The different phases of diagnosis and acceptance – Hypos, blood tests and injections – Food and eating – School and the teenage years – Family and friends – Life beyond home
For parents of kids with type 1 diabetes, there are many excellent books to help them learn everything from the basics to making the best use of advanced insulin pump features. But Diabetes Through the Looking Glass is different. Dr. Rachel Besser not only offers excellent diabetes care advice, but she brings a very unique perspective — she brings voice to people living with type 1 diabetes. How many of us have wished we could understand what our kids were thinking as we poked and stuck them, especially if they are very young? Well, now you can find out. Real people living with type 1, from kids to adults, provide insight into the mind of our kids, and help us, as parents, to provide better care with less worry (really). And it helps that Dr. Besser, who is a paediatrition specializing in childhood diabetes, was herself diagnosed with type 1 when she was nine years old. Highly Recommended.
Published by Class Publishing Ltd, London. ISBN 1859592090. 287 pages, paperback. £20.99 or $32.99.2009
