Elijah

From his mother, Heather:

Eli was 4 years old when he was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes. We are very thankful for a pediatrician who recognized his symptoms fairly early on at his yearly checkup so his diagnosis, while scary, wasn’t to the point of life threatening. Eli has had to deal with responsibilities from early on that no child should have to worry about, but of course every T1D child does. While other children could grab a snack whenever they were hungry and not give it another thought, Eli’s 4 year old brain was working overtime and decided that if he didn’t eat anything with carbs ever again, then he would never have to take another shot of insulin. We quickly set him straight with that thought and were very thankful when he was able to get on an Omnipod insulin pump about a year after his diagnosis.

Eli has played different sports over the years, soccer, basketball, tennis, and track and while other children worried about how tired their legs were from all the running, Eli had to worry about whether or not all of his extra activity was actually making his blood sugar run dangerously low. We were also very thankful when he was able to get a Dexcom CGM after being diagnosed only a few months.

When Eli and his twin brother, Caleb, turned eight, Caleb was also diagnosed with type one diabetes. The second time around was definitely not as hard on us as parents, but harder on Caleb because at eight years old he knew exactly everything that having diabetes entailed. While we were in the hospital with Caleb, Eli actually cheered to find out his brother had diabetes, not to be mean, but because he was excited to know someone else that was dealing with the same things he was. Again, he was 8 yrs old.

One blessing for our family was that because my husband is a pastor and I work in our church/school, we were both able to be nearby and on hand during Eli and Caleb’s elementary school years. That, along with having the Dexcom Share app constantly up on our phones, meant that we were able to help teachers and other school staff when they were dealing with low or high blood sugars, or changing diabetes equipment, equipment malfunctions, etc. Now the boys are finishing up their freshman year of high school and loving a bit more independence away from mom and dad. And mom and dad are very thankful for the technology advances of the closed loop system with Omnipod and Dexcom so that anytime the boys do forget to give themselves some insulin or check their blood sugars, their equipment is able to help them keep their blood sugar numbers in check.

Both of my boys are my T1D heroes and I am so proud of them and the realization of how much harder they have to work every day then most other children just to “live normally.”