The early days
Michaela recalls her time in hospital, “I was scared whether I’d have to stay in hospital. I wondered if my diabetes would ever go away. I didn’t want to be there. I really hated the blood tests. I didn’t like the finger pricks and injections.”
Michaela’s diabetes nurse was amazing at explaining everything and the whole family, including Michaela’s older sister, were involved in learning about our new normal. A life of finger pricks, injections, blood sugar highs and lows, glucose tablets, carb counting, tears, acceptance and a relentlessness we’d never known before. It felt like being new parents again with the lack of sleep and the kit bag that we had to take everywhere, ensuring we had everything we could possibly need to help manage Michaela’s blood sugar levels.
Saying yes to adventure
A pre-booked day trip to Lapland, that had already been postponed from the previous year, hung in the balance as it was just two weeks after diagnosis. However, this was also the catalyst to us getting the FreeStyle Libre system. It allowed us the ability to check her glucose levels which was brilliant as it meant far less finger pricks† and the ability to use the arrows to help ward off rising or falling levels.
A successful trip was just the boost we needed to realise that Type 1 diabetes wasn’t going to stop Michaela from achieving anything she set her mind to.
An extra layer of reassurance
Fast forward to January 2020, we were thrilled to be offered the FreeStyle Libre 2 system. The gamechanger here was the addition of alarms◊ that we could set to alarm if Michaela’s sugars were going too high or too low. This meant that I actually managed to get some sleep as previously I had still felt the need to check overnight ‘just in case’†.
Michaela has found the alarms really useful tooѰ: “I used to be busy playing or learning at school and sometimes I would forget to check my levels. Now it has alarms I can make sure I am in range more of the time and if I go too far away it beeps to say signal loss.”
Michaela loves that she doesn’t have to finger prick as much. We generally check bloods at meal times but often the bloods and the FreeStyle Libre 2 readings are very similar†.
Supporting others
In July 2020, we decided we wanted to share Michaela’s journey, spread awareness and hopefully help other families going through a similar thing so we started @mickles_prickles on Instagram. Michaela and I share information about life with Type 1. We share videos about the amazing technology we use to manage the condition, posts about daily life, Michaela’s achievements but also those days when it’s hard and totally overwhelming. We make the page as interactive as possible and love it when people get involved.
It was great recently when we participated in the Diabetes UK Month of Miles. We shared our daily family adventures of running at least a mile a day in August. We got lots of support.
“I’m really proud and I felt so relieved that I did my first ever 5km run. We ran 42 miles and I got a medal!” shares Michaela. The FreeStyle Libre 2 system was so useful to use the graphs and trending data before and after each run to help manage Michaela’s glucose levels and to see the impact of exerciseΦ.
A helping hand from technology
Michaela says, “I like telling people about Type 1. It was great when my diabuddy and her family decided to do their own month of miles. Mumma would read me people’s comments. It makes me really proud.”
Michaela is a fun-loving, energetic child. Whether she’s adventuring in the woods, paddle boarding, performing at theatre school, running or playing with friends, she is always on the go. We are so grateful for the technology that assists managing her Type 1 diabetes so that she can make the same childhood memories as everyone else!
Find out more about Helen and Michaela’ journey with diabetes and how technology supports them @mickles_prickles on Instagram.
Helen received a fee to write this blog. All opinions are her own.
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