During the first few days, many young people (and their parents too) may experience a feeling of resentment, disappointment and thoughts of "why me?/why my child?". If you are in this situation, you may have difficulty taking in the fact that you actually have diabetes. You will need time to examine your feelings and adjust gradually to this strange new situation that now faces you and the rest of your family. At this stage, you will probably find your doctors and nurses spend most of their time with you simply listening and answering questions. Then they will move on by degrees to teaching you more about diabetes.
Most things will be new and you may find them difficult to understand initially but, bit by bit, the different pieces of information will fall into place. By the end of the second week you will be beginning to understand how insulin and blood glucose affect each other. You will discover that your blood glucose level fluctuates frequently, and that a perfect blood glucose level is a rare thing, even for those people whose diabetes is very closely supervised.
Parents can find they lose touch with each other if one is spending much more time than the other with the child. It is essential that both parents participate as much as possible in the daily care of the child with newly diagnosed diabetes. Taking time off work may help provide sufficient time to focus on diabetes care needs if this is possible.
This content is based on Dr Ragnar Hanas' helpful book, Type 1 Diabetes in children, adolescents and young adults. Click here to order copies of Dr Hanas' book online.