Why did I start a blog? I’m not a blogger, I’ve never done this before and I’ll admit I’m a little scared. I’m a bit of a perfectionist, I can’t live without spell check and now people will be reading what I write and finding my mistakes. Even though I have all these feelings about writing a blog I’m also excited. If you’ve read the About Me section you know I like the TEDDY Study. I love my job working for TEDDY and while I wish my son had the low risk genes that wasn’t in the cards for us so I’m happy we are able to monitor him for type 1 diabetes and help out the study in the process. I want the best for TEDDY and I feel a great thing I could do would be to share my experiences and encourage others to share theirs too.
I have another advantage many TEDDY parents don’t have besides working for the study. I have a friend with a son the same age as mine who is also participating in TEDDY. She is even agreed to post a few of her TEDDY experiences, look for posts by C’sTEDDYMommy. She and I are able to discuss our sons’ very different experiences with blood draws, those diet records, poop of course and our fears. Being surrounded by type 1 diabetes in my work life it’s difficult not to think “what if that was my son” even though he only has a 3 in 100 risk, a 97% chance he’ll never develop diabetes.
My husband and I don’t have a single relative with type 1 diabetes (lots of type 2 in the family). The fact that my son has the higher risk genes is still surprising to us. Before I started working for diabetes research studies I honestly didn’t know much about type 1 other than a childhood friend had gotten really sick and been diagnosed with the disease after she moved out of state. Now I’ve explained to family members with type 2 diabetes how it differs from type 1 and how each disease affects the body.
I have a lot fun and interesting posts coming up for this blog including easy and difficult blood draws, an interview with an adult with type 1 and a short interview with another adult that has celiac disease. I plan on uploading new posts every 2 to 3 weeks so check back often!
