I hadn’t thought much about unconditional love until earlier this week.  It had never come up, never been forced upon me, never required that I prove it.  I had, possibly like most parents, simply taken it for granted.

Each weekend I looked forward to spending my spare time with my 7 year-old son.  Teaching him about sports, talking to him about anything, including him in my daily life.  Given that my enjoyments simply coincided with his, I was never required to think deeply about why and how much I cared.

Earlier this week however it all came surging forward and as I spent 3 days trying to navigate half the globe to get to a small hospital in Thailand to see him I had the time to really contemplate the concept:  unconditional love.

My son and my wife had been spending their traditional summer back in Thailand, visiting with the in-laws and assimilating him into Thai culture.  They had been gone almost 5 weeks when we found out her mother was terminally ill with cancer.  The news obviously took my wife for a profound loop and having lost her father very suddenly while she was out of the country, this time she had a chance to spend time with her mother before she left us.  We decided that she and my son should spend a few more weeks in the country helping to take care of her mother and saying their last goodbyes.

I, on the other hand, was in dire need of a simple vacation and with no family at home decided to take off down to El Salvador for some surfing with friends.  While sitting in the departure lounge I called back to Thailand to see how things were going.  My wife and son were fine and her mother was spending time going through a lot of tests at the local hospital.

“You’ll be amazed at how much Leighton is growing,” my wife mentioned.  “He’s eating everything in site and everyone says he’s getting so much taller.  I probably don’t see it because I’m around him all the time.  All I’m seeing is that he’s getting skinnier and skinnier.  It’s like he’s stretching out.

“And he’s drinking water all the time as well.  I’m trying to get him to slow down but he complains about being thirsty.  He’s drinking so much he has to pee every hour or so.  It’s crazy.  He even pee’d in his bed three times last night.”

“Hmm, that doesn’t sound really right to me.  If he’s peeing that much he may have a bladder infection or something.  You should take him over to the local clinic and see if they can give him something.”  I had no concept as to what may be going on with my son, but I knew that having to pee every hour was a bit odd.

“Yes, I was going to do that this morning.” With the time difference between the US and Thailand, they had just woken up and I was stepping onto a red-eye flight down to Central America.

“Ok darling, I’ve got to jump on a plane.  I’ll call you when I arrive and see how things are going with him.”  I didn’t give it much more thought and boarded the flight.

When I arrived and settled into my room I gave them another call.  It was now late at night their time and my wife answered the phone a bit more concerned than she had been over the last week.  The clinic had referred her and my son to the local hospital where they had run some tests.  The doctors had expressed that it may be more serious than we had originally thought.  As my wife had to take her mother to a regional hospital 3 hours north early the next morning, the local hospital arranged for her to get my son checked there as well.  She gave me a cell phone number I could call while she was spending the next few days up North.  I told her that I’d call again mid-morning the next day to find out what the hospital said.

…to be continued

How do you explain to your child why and how they got Type 1 diabetes?  It is one of the most difficult conversations you’ll have.  And it will be one that comes up again and again.

Why people contract Type 1 diabetes is still a mystery. Scientists agree that it is partly due to some genetic pre-disposition, but also likely the result of some infection or illness that kicked the body’s immune system into action.

How Type 1 diabetes is caused, is much more well known. At a simple level (and this is how we explained it to our son), the story goes like this:

Explaining Type 1 Diabetes to a Child

Sometimes germs and infections can enter your body. In order for you to get healthy again, inside your body is a force of cells called antibodies. These antibodies find the germs and infections and kick them out of the body. Think of them as your own little army that is always traveling around your body beating up the bad guys.

In a person with Type 1 diabetes, this army has unfortunately made a terrible mistake. At some point, they found and attacked a group of cells in the body called the ‘beta cells’ that live in your pancreas. This army of antibodies, for some reason, thought that these cells were the bad guys and destroyed them. Why? No one really knows.

The terrible part is that these ‘beta cells’ are what our bodies use to create insulin. And now that the antibodies have destroyed these cells, people with Type 1 diabetes are no longer able to create their own insulin and so have to bring insulin into their bodies (through shots) on their own.

There is a lot of on-going research that is helping the scientific community really start to understand the details behind the “how” and even the “why” of diabetes. It is this knowledge that will hopefully bring us closer to a cure.

Find out more about the most recent research at the Diabetes Watch Blog

As Type 1 diabetes often strikes children at a younger age or when they are in rapid development, sometimes the symptoms of diabetes don’t look like symptoms at all. But now we know; there are five classic warning signs that perhaps your child is suffering: extreme thirst, excessive urination, non-stop eating, weight loss and uncharacteristic mood swings.

Extreme Thirst

Being thirsty is normal, especially during summer. And asking for a glass of water just at bedtime is a classic stalling tactic kids employ all around the world. However watch out for true excessive thirst in your child. Ours was drinking possibly 10-15 litres of water a day consistently over the course of a couple of weeks. He was constantly asking for more.

Excessive Urination

Coupled with a lot of drinking you will naturally think that excessive urination is simply a result. As we did, you’ll try to coax your child into drinking less so that they don’t have to go to the bathroom as often. For us, the first signs were bedwetting. Our son hadn’t wet his bed since he was maybe three years old, and so when he started to do it again at seven we were a little upset.

“Come on, go to the bathroom before you sleep and no water!” We tried that for a while but he continued to wet his bed. During the day he was constantly asking to run to the bathroom. Finally, when he was wetting his bed three and four times a night, we knew something was really wrong.

Non-stop hunger

Kids go through growth spurts and when they do they tend to eat a lot more than normal. “He’s just a growing young boy,” we told each other. But pretty soon it was obvious that he was eating WAY more than anyone should. At one point, he sat and ate six apples in a row. This symptom probably would still not have tripped us up if it hadn’t been combined with the next.

Weight Loss

How could he possibly be losing weight when he is eating so much? Unfortunately, during the same few weeks that his symptoms progressed, our son also grew almost an inch and a half, so everyone around was simply commenting how quickly he was growing. As we were traveling during a bit of this time, we weren’t around any scales, so we never had the chance to weigh him. When we finally did, we realized that he had lost almost 10 pounds! He was eating (and peeing) like a horse, drinking constantly and yet here he was 10 pounds lighter. Oh oh.

An Absolute Grump

We’re very lucky. We have a very even-tempered child. Yeah, like all children he can get into a mood. He can argue back, get angry, cry, all those things. But as his symptoms progressed we had a couple of experiences that simply threw us for a loop. At one point he absolutely refused to speak on the phone, to the point of screaming. He has never screamed and I was at an absolute loss. This didn’t seem to be my kid.

The most difficult thing about recognizing Type 1 diabetes is that alone, each of the symptoms may not cause alarm. And maybe even combined, they can go a bit unnoticed because basically your child will likely feel just fine. But if you do start to see your child exhibit these symptoms together (all of them), it will be worth your while to get into your doctor and get them checked.