Send Me More Stories About Diabetes
It’s Caregiver Week on Folks! This week, we’ll be telling stories about the people who provide physical and emotional care for the people they love most. Learn what PillPack can do to help caregivers here.
“Learning how to care for a diabetic is like a part time job,” says Julie Seabury. Except it’s one that starts at dawn.
Everyday, Julie starts the day on alert. As soon as they wake up, her daughter Maddy, 10, and son Jake, 14, check their blood levels and tell her the results. “I want to know what we’re starting at,” Julie explains, equating it with a quick glance at the fuel gauge before you rev up the car.
Julie Seabury
Then comes the math. The kids make their own lunches, writing the estimated carb count for every item they pack. Their breakfast depends on their blood count, but never includes carbohydrates, which might cause their levels to spike. But eggs and bacon are usually on the menu, as well as carefully measured glasses of juice, if their morning blood sugar levels are low.
Next, the drive to school. Maddy and Jake’s teachers are prepped on what to do ‘in case of an emergency’, but Julie still needs to double check that the administration knows the signs of high and low blood sugar, and that the nurses have backup meds on hand in case of emergency. Once she’s confident the kids can get through the day, she drives off to her full-time job, also as a teacher at a nearby school, but even then, she’s always got one eye on an app that connects to Maddy and Jake’s blood monitoring systems so she can check on them throughout the day.
Night is the scariest time.
When you have type 1 diabetes, there’s a phenomenon called “Dead in Bed” syndrome, in which low-blood sugar can result in a person with diabetes slipping into a coma and dying. Julie’s nights are filled with surges of fear that, if she doesn’t check on them regularly, either Maddy or Jake will succumb to the syndrome.
So every night, Julie sets two alarms: one at 1am, then another at 4am. When they go off, she slips into her children’s rooms as quietly as she can, to check their blood levels. Sometimes, when she checks, her kids’ glucose levels will be off the charts, seemingly for no reason. Then, she and her husband are up six or more times per night, bringing her children juice and making sure they’re okay.
The Seabury Kids. Maddy, front, and Jake, right, both have Type 1 Diabetes.
Before June 2014, Julie couldn’t even imagine having to worry about such things. That was the month that Julie’s youngest daughter was diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes.
“There really is a learning curve [to managing Type 1]… It’s not a simple math.”
Maddy, then 7 years old, had recently begun losing weight. Normally bright and energetic, she became lethargic and sickly. Already managing celiac, Maddy was more susceptible to other autoimmune diseases, so Julie and her husband took their youngest daughter to the hospital. What followed was a whirlwind 24 hours in intensive care, followed by a three-day crash course in which Julie–a total stranger to the world of diabetes–had to learn all of the (seeming) calculus needed to keep her T1D daughter healthy.
“There really is a learning curve,” Julie remembers. “It’s not a simple math.” Luckily, Maddy was diagnosed in summer, months Julie has off from work. During this time, she perfected her technique: checking blood glucose levels with a finger prick, injecting insulin, and counting carbs to keep Maddy stable.
It was good she had the practice. Six months later, her oldest child, Jake, was also diagnosed. This time, she knew just what to do, but while it was easier in some ways, “it was also harder, because I knew what [type 1] meant,” says Julie. “I knew what it meant for our family.”
A glimpse inside Maddy’s bag reveals lots of diabetes supplies.
Three years later, Julie and her family have adjusted to the drastic lifestyle change that comes with having two of their three children diagnosed with T1D. Now, Maddy and Jake are “pretty darn independent. “ They test their own blood, count their own carbs, change their infusion sets for their insulin pumps and know their bodies well enough to be aware of their needs when they are exercising, eating lunch, or having highs and lows in their blood glucose levels.
With all these struggles, parents that have children with T1D need support. That’s why a significant portion of Julie’s spare time is devoted to reading messages from other Type 1 parents online, through blogs or Facebook groups. Julie doesn’t often post herself, but “just seeing other people putting themselves out there” helps her, she says. “I can read that and know that I’m not alone – other people are out there crying their eyes out too.”
One day, Julie posted on her own Facebook page: “Today, being a pancreas is kicking my butt.” Both Maddy and Jake’s CGM devices broke, expensive pieces of equipment which provide Julie with important mobile alerts about their blood sugar levels. The bad luck highlighted another underemphasized fact about being a caregiver for someone with Type 1 Diabetes: the constant expense. All of this equipment costs money, and even with insurance, it puts sizable financial stress on the family.
“It’s just constant. If I really think about the fact that we will never get a break from this, it becomes disheartening. It’s always there.” The challenge of the Type 1 parent is achieving balance between the constant worries and responsibilities of keeping a child healthy, and not letting Type 1 get in the way of a life well-lived, for everyone affected by it.
The challenge of the Type 1 parent is achieving balance… and not letting Type 1 get in the way of a life well-lived.
Through all this, Julie takes strength from her children.
Last year, for a project interpreting Martin Luther King Jr’s ‘I Have A Dream’ speech, Maddy focused on her dream for a cure of diabetes. “She researched how many people are affected by diabetes, and taught her class about it” Julie remembers. “She explained how finding a cure would change things for her when she is playing sports, or having a sleepover at a friend’s house.”
That’s a dream Julie, too, shares. She can only imagine how her life would change if a cure to Type 1 Diabetes is found: the money it would save, the gray hairs it would prevent, the nightmares it would stave away. But that’s not to say Julie Seabury resents being a human pancreas. Far from it: there’s just nothing she wouldn’t do for her kids.
