Thursday, June 17, 2010

Born again - for the third time

I will never forget the first time I held my son in my arms and gazed upon his face. I knew then and there I had been trusted with something very special. Every single day of the past nearly twelve years, I have had the privileged to see his shining face, and I have been in awe of him. He fills my heart with such joy I cry looking at him sometimes. Yeah, I got it bad - I know! Sometimes, when he was a baby he would look up at the corner and smile, behaving like someone was there talking to him. As he got older and could talk, we would ask him who he was talking to, "Jesus," he would say. Now mind you, we didn't go to church, and although we considered ourselves Christians, he was not exposed to God enough to come up with this on his own. It was then no surprise when he was old enough, that he became born again for the second time.

Recently my precious baby boy experienced a third rebirth. A life altering change so severe, his day to day life will never be the same again. He has type 1 diabetes. Every single meal and snack he eats is preceded by strict carb counting, blood testing, a math formula, and a shot. Even with all this, factors such as heat, exercises, stress, and hormones can cause his blood sugar levels to rise or even worse, drop. There now is the constant fear that he could suffer a seizure (or God forbid something even worse)in his sleep, (or any time for that matter) and he will fight a life long battle against heart disease, kidney disease, eye disease, and circulatory disease.

I started writing this post almost a month ago, when David was still in the hospital. I am finally able to finish it without tears. We have started our new normal and habits are starting to form, although still difficult and somewhat awkward. We are blessed and thank the lord that it was caught in time, that through modern science and medicine we can manage this illness fairly well, that we have a wealth of information at our fingertips via the internet, and that David is a fantastic kid who is handling this like a trooper without complaint. I am even more in awe of him than ever. I think I will stop here and beat the tears this time. :-)

Sunday, June 6, 2010

PLEASE Drive Safely

This is quite disturbing to watch, but I beg you to pass it around, post it on your blog and/or Facebook, have everyone you can over the age of 15 watch it.