Why?

Do you start these things with a “hello”? We’re not sure as neither of us have ‘blogged’ before but “hello” any way. We are Jen and Brad, parents of an awesome 9 year old boy called Hamish who just so happens to be a Type 1 Diabetic. We run this website oneand2.com.au featuring Diabetes Accessories and we have now decided to write a blog…So, with that in mind, welcome to our first ever blog and one we have titled “Why?”…

We’re hoping that you ask why we have called it “Why?” so we can tell you that in living with a child that has Type 1 Diabetes, in dealing with many other families in similar situations through volunteer work and in running www.oneand2.com.au there are quite a few whys that we thought we should talk about.

We’ll start with the why that relates to this blog: “Why would anyone care?”
Before deciding to put pen to paper (or keyboard to wordpress website) and start sharing our life with diabetes we definitely asked who would want to hear about our  – and our sons – daily life with Type 1 Diabetes? We don’t know and maybe no one will care but perhaps someone will relate or one person will feel better after reading what we feel, experience, learn, know and probably most importantly don’t know.  It’s hard to say which way it will go but we guess we’re willing to give it a try.

The second why? “Why us?” (although this could have easily been the first!)
We’ve all been there, whether at initial diagnosis, after a sleepless night of countless BGL tests, a bout of illness or a bad hypo – Why me? Why our child? Why us? We’re not going to shy away from this. We think we’re entitled to a good dose of self pity every now and again – god knows Hamish is – as long as we can let it out, pick ourselves up and whack the smile back on our face we’re OK. We truly believe that we could be in a worse situation or be dealing with a worse illness – sometimes just marginally! – but we’re not going to pretend and say that life with diabetes is easy, it bloody well isn’t. It can be exhausting, it can be heartbreaking and it can feel like you are living on a knife’s edge. But it’s our life and we will take it. What we’re saying is that the one thing we do promise to give you in this blog is a warts and all account of our life with diabetes, no sugar coating, pardon the pun. Sometimes it will be great, yesterday was a perfect example with readings in the 6’s all day long! Yeah! HbA1C here we come! Sometimes it won’t  – night time arrived and we had a 15.1 followed by a 14.9 and a 14.2, despite two extra doses of insulin. Bugger. We will talk about our days, our life, things we discuss, debate and think about on a daily basis – such as “to pump or not to pump” – and see how we go.

Number three: “Why www.oneand2.com.au?”
Given we are posting this blog from our website oneand2.com.au you may want to know where it all came from. This is a double-barreled why but we think it’s important to explain so you know why we are here today.  The first relates to the name – oneand2. Of course the obvious is that we cater for people with both Type 1 and Type 2 diabetes, although really we probably should have called it oneandmany.com.au given there are up to 12 recognised ’types’ of diabetes depending on what country you live in and what resources you read.

The second is because we have a very personal experience with Type 1 and Type 2 Diabetes. Our eldest son, Hamish, now 9 years old, has had Type 1 Diabetes since the age of four. My (the ‘my’ being Jen in this instance!) Dad, Doug, now 75 years old has had Type 2 Diabetes for around 30 years, the last 10 of those as a insulin-dependent Type 2. And my (this time the ‘my’ is Brad – are you confused yet?) Mum has two sisters and three brothers with Diabetes. It was our own need, our own experiences and our own lives that led us to set up www.oneand2.com.au, finding what we think are stylish and practical diabetes accessories from around the world to make a difficult disease hopefully just that little bit easier.

The fourth?  “Why do we choose the diabetes accessories we have on oneand2.com.au?”
This is a straight forward why! Whenever we think about adding a new product to our site we are looking for quality, practicality, a sense of fun and/or style and for something a little bit special. To be honest, having diabetes is pretty crappy so we want to be associated with products that we know bring some spark, make something a little bit easier or a bit of both.  And in most cases when we find a product, we find a diabetes story behind it. Never a truer saying was uttered than “Necessity is the mother of all invention”  – nearly all of the people we work with have created diabetes accessories out of their own needs as a diabetic or as the parent of a diabetic. For example the radrr kids insulin pump cases come from a very cool dad of a Type 1 Diabetic who was looking for a better way for his son to carry his pump around. And the range of stylish Adorn Designs diabetes supply bags for men and women were created by a Type 1 Diabetic women in California who wanted to match style with the need to carry around diabetes supplies. You get the point. We will continue to search the globe for these products and when we find something we love, we will bring it to you and hope you love it too!

The very last why (and thank god you may be saying)….“Why not?”
Having a child with Type 1 Diabetes is both a heartbreak and a delight. Every time we think about what Hamish goes through, what as a little boy he has to consider and know about his health, what he must so often feel and think, both of our hearts break. You never want your child to have to deal with things like hypos, hypers, ketones, constant testing, needles… yes, yes we know it’s not the worst thing that can happen but it still sucks. On the flipside, every time we see his resilience, determination, passion for life and willingness to give everything a go – and we mean everything! He takes on life at full force – we are filled with so much love, respect and awe for this little soul who doesn’t let Diabetes hold him back. He has his moments of frustration of course but on the whole he blows a raspberry at Diabetes and gets on with it. And we know this is not just our son. So many parents we talk to are amazed at how their children deal with such an all consuming disease. So this is for all of you out there.  We may question, doubt, think no one wants to hear our stories but at the end of the day, we have nothing to lose. So WHY NOT!

So that’s it. Why? Because it’s late, our 11pm BGL is not where it should be and we’ve set the alarm to get up at 3am – just another Diabetes day! Until the next rambling…

Jen and Brad, parents to Superhero Hamish

PS We would love to hear anything you have to say about this or any topic we post about so feel free to add your comments below.