Four-year-old Sana bravely stretches out her arm and stiffly closes her eyes in anticipation of the needle prick. She has high blood sugar, almost 150 points over the accepted level.
Sana is one among the 30,000 children detected with diabetes each year.
Type 1, or juvenile diabetes, occurs when the pancreas stops producing sufficient insulin. It usually occurs before the age of 20.
According to the Juvenile Diabetes Foundation, “An estimated one million Americans are being treated for Type 1 diabetes”.
In India, statistics project that every 5th adult is going to be diabetic.
When Sana’s parents were told their daughter had diabetes, their first reaction was mild relief as they thought she was suffering from a deadly disease. It was only as the parents understood the implications of diabetes that the true meaning of Sana’s condition set in.
Suzanne Levert writes in her book, When your child has a chronic illness, “If your child has been diagnosed with a chronic illness, you have just begun an odyssey. Although your child may not have cancer, chances are that you will feel as overwhelmed by the new world you’ve just entered, one that is populated by healthcare professionals, diagnostic tests and procedures and medical jargon that often sounds like a foreign language.”
Monitoring blood sugar, checking insulin dosage and managing hypoglycaemic episodes (plummeting blood sugar) become everyday realities to deal with.
“What most parents find very tough is learning how to give their child insulin injections on a daily basis”, says Reshma Sheikh, a diabetes educator. She adds, “They usually mis-administer dosage because they fear injecting the child.”
Double Jeopardy: Junk food and inactive kidsTags: Diabetes, children
