Did you know?

Before Thursday, my knowledge of diabetes consisted of what Dr. H talked about on Biggest Loser.


That's not true. I knew enough about the symptoms of diabetes that we were able to get Brooke diagnosed relatively early. She was sick, but not as sick as she could have been. I'm not sure where I learned about warning signs, but somewhere along the way, I did. And they stuck.


Did you know...

-that your pancreas, for the most part, makes the insulin your body uses...didn't you always wonder what the pancreas did?

-Type 1 Diabetes is an auto immune disease

-a person that has Type 1 Diabetes will always be insulin dependant

-that milk has enough carbs in it that diabetics have to count it as a carb

- that it is possible to detect the antibodies that cause Type 1 as early as 10 years before a diagnosis

-even though Mary Tutu is Brooke's identical twin, she only has a 40%-50% chance of becoming Type 1...that seems high to me, but not when you compare it to 100% you would think it would be with identical twins

- that researchers are in the process of developing an artificial pancreas...wouldn't it be awesome if someday Brooke could get a substitute pancreas that functions similar to a healthy one?

-that back in the 90's one of the winners of Miss America (or USA, whichever one has the swimsuit competition) was a Type 1 and participated in the swim suit competition wearing an insulin pump

- that until 1993 it was generally accepted that insulin was attacking the patient's eyes, circulation, kidneys, and causing other well known complications...now we know that lack of insulin makes it impossible for a diabetic's body actually use the sugar they are eating and it's the lack of insulin that causes all the problems

- to keep Brooke healthy we have to test Brooke's blood sugar 4 to 6 times a day

-there are people in government that want to tell insurance companies that they only have to cover blood sugar testing 3 times a day instead of leaving it up to doctors to determine what is best

- the scariest part of living with diabetes isn't blood sugar getting too high...it's letting it drop too low