This week a lot of my friends are sending their kids on their 8th grade field trips to Washington DC. I remember sending Paige on her trip several years ago, and we were nervous because Type 1 Diabetes.
She had her Dexcom and pump and cell phone, and I tried to be a chaperone but they did not allow parents to be chaperones. I understood why, but dang I would have felt better going! The school nurse (who is AMAZING) was one of the chaperones so that helped my nerves.
The bus leaves in the evening and drives all night so when the morning hits they are in DC. The first day they walked about 10 miles. Paige’s pump site ended up being bad, and when we replace the site she usually ends up going low. She was communicating with us all day and all was fine. In the evening we got an alert from her Dexcom that she was low. We tried calling her phone and had someone trying her roommates cell but we knew that they were just so deep asleep because they didn’t get much rest on the bus and because of all the activity from the day. Now we started freaking out! All of the parents had been given the name of the hotel and we knew what room number she was in. We ended up calling the hotel to have them go upstairs and wake Paige up and a chaperone. As soon as the hotel staff answered the phone I broke down crying because I was so scared and had to hand the phone over to hubby.
The hotel staff was able to wake Paige, and also the nurse. Thankfully Paige's room was right across the hall from the chaperones room that the nurse was staying in. I can’t tell you how relieved I was when he called and said they were already giving Paige some juice and all was fine.
If it wasn't for the technology we probably would not have felt comfortable with her going. Type 1 Diabetes will always rob Paige of good health, rob all of us from a good nights sleep, from our peace of mind, robs us of a lot.
Those memories weren’t the only thing that flooded my mind this week: thinking about Aiden and when its time for his trip if he will be able to go.
He’s a good kid. He listens. He enjoys car rides. He likes to experience life and have fun. He might be able to... but he might not. And I hate not knowing what to expect.
And that’s one of the things that Autism robs of us of: knowing (somewhat) what the future holds.
Its an “I hate Autism” kind of week.
-Sara
