I was on the internet recently and found this...

Whilst having a browse on Youtube (as you do) I happened upon a video about changing the infusion set as I do on a regular basis. This was a little different as it was filmed by some parents of a young lad no more than a year or two old (link at end of post, if I remember) and I was struck by emotion. Something that doesn't usually happen with blokes in general.
When I was in my early teens I recall my Father saying that if he could, he would have diabetes instead of me. Now that I use the Children With Diabetes (link to website at the bottom of the post) mailing list I can begin to understand a little of what they and my old man must have felt and continue to feel.
It's one thing to have grown up being diabetic and not knowing anything different but to be the parent of a diabetic child? That's something I can't even begin to comprehend if I'm honest with you all. One can suppose that there is the feeling that what is your perfect child has been spoiled by something that you can't influence, the emotion of the knowledge that your child will now have something that cannot be cured, only controlled but even so there's still the risk that you won't get away Scot free, the pain that they don't understand what's happening other than your parents are coming at you with a very large metal pointy thing and inflict pain upon you and that they'll grow up with something that they won't be able to shake but with which you'll have to deal with until they're at an age when they can take it over for themselves.
So what's the point of this post you may be asking yourselves (yes, you dear literate proletariat) I suppose this is me raising a glass (both metaphorically and physically) to the parents who are absolute saints and wonderful in the way that they deal with their children's illness. I salute you.
I only wish that this kind of support had been available to my folks when I had been diagnosed as this would have been of such great benefit to them. This is my toast to you, the parents of children with diabetes who are such a resource to one another, such a comfort to one another in times of hardship and many more occaisions and things like that.

So, what caveat must I add to this? Well, ultimately I am so very grateful for the tireless effort put in by my parents into something the stresses of which I cannot comprehend or even begin to imagine. I am lucky in the way that I am the diabetic and don't have to go through what the parents have. I say lucky, it's a Catch 22 situation and one I'd rather not be in but the situation I find myself in I must make the most of.

Here there be links:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nDfebHZwAKw&feature=related

http://www.childrenwithdiabetes.com/