If you are the main carer for a child with type 1, make sure someone else in the home also knows how to do all that is necessary to manage your child's diabetes. And make sure the other person routinely does the tasks so that they can take over at any point. Jess is just about independent with her diabetes apart from set changes with her pump. Hubby has gone through the set change once or twice but as I do them all the time he's out of practice. Last week I was taken ill and my GP wanted to admit me to hospital for a few days. I suppose my husband would have muddled through if it was absolutely necessary but I would be been worrying about them. My GP understood my concern about Jess' diabetes and thankfully she made arrangements for me to be treated as an outpatient, and my condition turned out to be not as serious as she thought so it all worked out for the best. Of course that evening when I was talking hubby through the pump change the thing came up with an error, I have no idea why but after loosening the battery and re-tightening the battery cap it all worked okay again. Typical that the thing works flawlessly apart from the one evening when potentially I might have not been home. He thought he'd done something wrong but he hadn't, he'd followed my instructions so I'm not sure what that was about. Anyway, make sure you're not the only person who is hands on with managing your child's diabetes, think about who will take over if you need to be away and are they practiced enough to feel confident in taking over. I would have felt bad leaving hubby to muddle through on his own, it would have been unfair on both him and Jess so now we're taking equal responsibility in knowing how to do the pump changes until Jess can take over them by herself.
