I thought I’d kick things off by starting with what really got me here.
No, not my diagnosis — that’s what pushed me toward working in diabetes. I mean what got me here, stepping out of my comfort zone and trying out this whole writing thing. I’m talking about Owen’s diagnosis.
I was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes when I was seven. A lot has changed since then — in what we know about the disease, how we can delay it, and how we treat it once diagnosed. I’m grateful for the advancements that have kept me healthy and complication-free for the last 45 years. I feel confident living with diabetes. I don’t think I fear the disease itself anymore — except for one thing:
Passing it on to my kids.
For reasons I still don’t quite understand, I used the age of seven as a kind of emotional goal post. I’ve worried about whether any of my kids would develop diabetes since the day they were born. But once each of them passed their eighth birthday, I gave myself permission to breathe. It wasn’t logical, but if pretending we were in the clear helped me stop worrying about something I couldn’t control, so be it. My two oldest made it past the mark and into their teens. Then Owen turned eight — and I exhaled.
And then came the signs. Yes, those signs.
The ones his mother and I know by heart. But in the chaos of co-parenting from two separate homes, we just didn’t see them.
Owen had always been thin, so weight loss didn’t stand out. Increased thirst and hunger? With three kids in the house, dinnertime is like feeding time at the zoo — hard to track who’s eating what. But then there was the bedwetting. That was the one. That was the sign.
Like most kids, he had the occasional accident. I didn’t think too much of it. But I do remember noticing it was happening more often. Then came a week where he wet the bed every night — and then twice in one night. It didn’t register at the time; I was washing two sets of sheets while getting three kids out the door and myself to work. It wasn’t until I was leaving the office that the realization hit me.
By the time I got home, the kids were with their sitter. I called a friend down the street to come over for moral support while I checked Owen’s blood sugar.
HI.
That’s what the meter read — blood sugar too high to measure. I had him wash his hands again (he already had the first time, but this time I supervised) and rechecked. I stepped back, afraid to look. He peeked at the screen, turned it toward me, and said:
“Well, HI to you too!”
If it had been a different situation, I might’ve laughed.
I left my two older kids with the neighbor and drove Owen to the hospital where I worked, hoping my badge might speed us through the ER. I called his mom on the way, and she redirected us to Nemours, the children’s hospital just south of us. Thank goodness she did. My hospital had a pediatric unit, but Owen would’ve been transferred to a children’s hospital anyway.
And so, on the evening of Friday, June 9, 2025, we piggybacked our way from the parking lot to the ER. A quick glucose and ketone test confirmed the diagnosis.
Thankfully, Owen wasn’t in DKA — a dangerous condition that unfortunately is how many Type 1s are diagnosed. Since it was a Friday, we’d wouldn’t be able to meet with the endocrinology team before discharge, so we’d have to stay the weekend.
Owen had it pretty good, to be honest. Brightly colored room, his own TV, Xbox, and a room service-style menu he could order from any time. I was so jealous.
Not that this is a competition, but when I was diagnosed, it was at an adult hospital. My room was painted some weird “industrial yellow.” No menu. No TV. And I had to share a room with a 70-year-old man who yelled at me constantly. (To be fair, I was seven. Seven-year-olds and 70-year-olds should not be roommates.)
That night, I took a walk around the hospital floor. It was quiet, dimly lit, most doors open. I didn’t look inside, but I could hear the machines. You can tell a lot about a patient’s condition by the number of beeps coming from the room.
That’s when it hit me: Owen is going to be fine.
I have diabetes. His mom and I are both diabetes educators. We’ve worked in the diabetes industry and still know many people who do. His godmother is an insulin pump trainer. And the tools we have today — sensor-augmented insulin pumps — are the stuff I used to dream about when I was his age.
Yes, there will be a learning curve, but it will be shorter.
And yes, I never thought I’d say this — me having diabetes is actually an advantage.
The next day, he had visitors. His siblings and mom arrived first, and within ten minutes, the kids were arguing over what to order from the menu — music to my ears. Then his best friend came, jumped into bed with him, and asked if he could make the legs go up and down. It was almost… normal again.
On Monday, we met the endocrinology team. We left the hospital with a Dexcom sensor and a script for a Tandem T: Slim insulin pump — which he’d later be trained on by his godmother, of course.
This won’t be easy. Diabetes is a part of our lives now, and it will bring its challenges. But we are incredibly lucky.
And most of all — Owen is going to be just fine.