Some of you may already know this, and some of you may not, but Lyle is a Type 1 diabetic. He manages his diabetes very well, so well that most people don't even know he has it. Lyle was diagnosed with diabetes at the age of 5 and since being diagnosed he has seen so many changes/ improvements to his treatment. Lyle does a remarkable job managing his diabetes. We get very good reports from his doctors and nurses that he his healthy. Nothing to worry about right now! I wanted to take the time to post this because I feel like everyone should know what he goes through on a daily basis with this disease. Most of our family and friends know that he's a diabetic, but I don't think they fully understand what all goes into his disease.
For any of you that are not familiar with what type 1 diabetes is I will give you a short summary. Type 1 diabetes is a disease that causes a person to have high levels of sugar (glucose) in their blood because their pancreas, the organ that helps regulate blood sugar, does produce insulin. Insulin is a hormone that is needed to help move blood sugar (glucose) into cells, which it is stored and later used to help produce energy for the body to function. One of the most frustrating aspects of type 1 diabetes is that they don't know what causes it- so there is no cure for it. There is ongoing research to help determine a cause for diabetes so we can (hopefully) one day find a cure for it. We are praying there is a cure for this disease sometime in Lyle's lifetime, but only time will tell.
Diabetes is a very stressful, straining and expensive disease to have. It requires Lyle's monitoring on a daily, and on most days, hourly basis. Since his body cannot regulate itself he has to test his blood sugar levels with a blood tester. It gives him a reading and there is a range of where his blood sugar should be at. If he is having a "low", where is blood sugar is lower than it should be, he has to eat something to bring up his levels- he typically uses fruit snacks to do this. If he is having a "high", where his blood sugar is higher than it should be, he has to give himself insulin to correct the sugar and bring it back down to where it needs to be. He also has to give himself insulin whenever he eats a meal. To do this he calculates the number of carbohydrates in a particular meal and uses a math equation to figure out the amount of insulin he will need to keep his blood sugar regulated.
Lyle is one of the most patient, meticulous people I know and I think it is because of his diabetes. He works hard everyday and fights for health. It's something that is taken for granted by many of us. He can't just eat something without thinking about it or spontaneously leave without planning to take all of his medicine with him. Luckily, diabetes doesn't really stop Lyle from doing anything because he manages it so well but there are some things he has to do differently than the rest.
Currently, Lyle's going through a lot because he's switched the way he's doing things with his diabetes. I will be posting more updates as we go along through this new exciting (scary) journey!
Stay tuned...
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