What should they tell you at diagnosis?
Scott Benner
I was recently asked, "name one thing that you wish someone would have told you the day Arden was diagnosed with diabetes?" I thought about it and almost said that it would have been nice to know how unpredictable things would be.
but after serious consideration... I said,
"I wish someone would have introduced me to Twitter". I found the diabetes online community by mistake. Actually, I didn't know it existed even after I published Arden's Day - I was amazingly and embarrassingly unaware. I never Googled "diabetes", "type I" or the search that I see most now - "my child was just diagnosed with diabetes". I've said this before but there was a small amount of time when I believed that my blog was one of a kind - which of course it is/was not.
I sort of backed into Twitter. I (very honestly) originally joined because I thought that it would help this website find a larger audience. Very soon I realized that it was much more! I began to meet so many great people and communicating with them was very organic. It takes a lot for someone to email you through your website but sending a tweet isn't so daunting. Meeting more people brought new management ideas, more comfort and reinforced the notion that I wasn't alone.
A few weeks after I joined Twitter Arden's BG was unsteady at bedtime so I was sitting up and waiting for it to stabilize. Before I knew what happened it was after 3 am - I was falling to sleep... so in an effort to stay awake I opened Twitter. A quick swipe of my finger showed me that another D-parent was awake and doing the same thing. We chatted for a few minutes and my anxiety melted away. I was still exhausted but I no longer felt isolated.
I think that somewhere between being taught how to give an injection and carb counting class, the hospital should have a social media person drop by and explain why the kids are calling the number sign a hashtag.
My next few posts will center around social media and the great things that it has brought to my life. Look for the first soon after Christmas.
#DOC, #diabetes, #type I, #Twitter