Most people know my youngest daughter has Type 1 Diabetes. Our third anniversary of dealing with this disease is coming up at the end of this month. Normally, I'm not an over-the-top, in-yo'-face sort of mom. Especially now that my daughter is at an age where she is more and more capable of caring for herself and her chronic disease.
However, I read a few comments recently from a man named Roger Bezanis who is practicing a paleo diet and scientology. His comments were spectacularly rude, suggesting Type 1 Diabetes is a figment of the entire medical community's imagination. That parents were completely gullible and brainwashed; therefore, allowing the medical community to treat, rather than "cure" this chronic disease. He also claimed that a "de-tox and eating clean food" would cure Type 1. Normally, I don't allow ridiculous statements such as these to bother me, but the blatant ignorance of his statements led me to believe he needs some serious education as to what this disease actually is.
For those of you who don't know what Type 1 Diabetes is, it's an auto-immune disease that causes your body to kill the cells in the pancreas that produce insulin. Meaning, without insulin therapy, these people will die because their bodies CANNOT produce insulin. The sugar gets "stuck" in the blood stream, if you will, without insulin to help it exit the blood stream.
Using a "detoxification" process will not cure my daughter. The cells that produce insulin are no longer there. I seriously doubt detoxifying her body will allow those cells to miraculously regenerate. A "clean diet" won't cure her either. Even with a "clean diet", there are a certain number of carbohydrates consumed, which your body will turn to glucose (sugar). Without insulin, glucose will not enter her blood stream essentially starving her while her blood sugar climbs, causing a very serious condition called diabetic-ketoacidosis. Diabetic-ketoacidosis is a condition where the body begins to break down fat for food. It causes vomiting, dehydration, odd breathing and finally coma.
It is in this state my daughter was diagnosed. She didn't have the common "call signs" of diabetes -- excessive thirst and urinating and/or weight loss. Nope. The evening before she was diagnosed she chugged two litres of apple juice, claiming to still be dying of thirst. The following morning, she was throwing up. As she was nine at the time, I chalked it up to a stomach flu. By late afternoon, I realized it wasn't your run-of-the-mill flu. She had literally shrunk before my very eyes -- by approximately ten pounds. Yes. Ten pounds. The dehydration had become so severe, she looked like an eighty-year old woman. Her eyes were black and sunken into the sockets. Nothing -- I repeat, nothing -- stayed down. Not water. Not gingerale. Nothing.
At the emergency department, I carried my child in, holding her because she was unable to stand on her own. There was a woman in front of us, crying as she spoke to the triage nurse. She was a new mom of a two-month-old baby and suspected she was suffering from post-partum depression. To my everlasting shame, I remember thinking "Suck it up, Princess. My baby is really sick and needs help." In fact, only moments later, I pushed my way through the double doors into the emergency room, explaining my daughter's symptoms as we entered. Three doctors and multiple nurses grabbed her and took her to a stretcher at the end. By the time my oldest daughter and I reached her stretcher, one of the doctors asked me how long she'd been diabetic. I can't describe the absolute shock and devastation I felt. There are no words.
My husband finished work and broke down when he saw our daughter so ill, lying on that stretcher. He took our oldest daughter home, who was exceptionally distraught seeing her little sister was so sick.
I spent nearly twenty-four hours in the emergency room with her. Watching them draw blood from her little arm every hour or two. Watched them struggle to start another I.V. Watched a little life come back into her cheeks as her body became hydrated once more.
Life was hell for a few months after her diagnosis. I'm not going to lie. I'm not going to make this diagnosis and adjustment period sound nice. It wasn't. Heck, we still have days where each and everyone of us hate this damned disease. It's just that our coping skills have grown and matured.
Unfortunately, this man's blatant ignorance and claims to "cure" this life-long, chronic disease made all of my coping skills hit the floor -- the basement floor, actually. It belittled every step forward we had gained. Demeaned the struggle my daughter has had just to live. Get that? Just. To. Live. If he had been in the room with me, he would have been well and truly educated. Just not in a manner to compliment me.
My message to people like this is to educate yourselves. Don't assume you know everything there is to know about a medical condition or how to "cure" or treat it -- unless you've walked a mile in the disease's shoes. I'm not saying alternative medicine doesn't have it's place in this world. But, be careful what you preach when your knowledge base is limited.
And finally, if you must critique, for god's sakes, BE KIND. There was absolutely, positively, NO EXCUSE for the rudeness Roger Bezanis used.
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