I'm new to this forum and hope this is the right place to ask these questions.
My boyfriend of several months has type 1 diabetes and sometimes I feel a little overwhelmed. He has reasonably good control and is very open to talking to me about his illness. I am always allowed to ask what the meter says when he measures, he uses a freestyle and even showed me how to take a reading in case I ever find him unconscious or fear of him having a hypo while sleeping. I know how to use the glucagon shot and know where it is.
I have witnessed a couple of moderate hypos and generally they passed quickly without any severe mood changes on his part nor with any significant amount of anxiety on my part. I think by now I have more emergency carbohydrate rations that fit in my hand bag than I actually have handbags to fit them in (mainly small cans of regular soda and dextrose). Generally in day to day life everything is fine and I feel safe and confident enough that I could act in an emergency. However sometimes his values are too high or too low for little to no apparent reason (a few weeks back he had an ear infection that caused a few highs). He says, and I completely trust him on this, that this is just what will happen every once in a while and because he regularly checks his values and corrects on time its no reason to worry. But sometimes I can't help but be rather scared or worried for him, especially when values are high. I'm a little scared to show or tell him when his values worry or scare me because obviously its his body thats on the rollercoaster ride not mine. Are there any partners of T1Ds here that have similar feelings? How do you cope with them?
Sometimes I can also tell that it really frustrates him when values are low or high, especially if this persists for a few hours. I always feel an urge to help and support him when this happens, but I know that practically, aside from getting something to eat from the kitchen, there is nothing I can do. I have asked him whether there is something I can do to help him on hyper/hypo situations and he said that there is nothing for me to do most of the time. None the less I can't help wishing that I could take some of that feeling of being alone and frustrated away from him. Is there anything you have found helps in a partnership in these situations? What do you like your spouse to do when tight control seems difficult, the diabetes is frustrating you or things are just generally being a bit of a pain?
My boyfriend of several months has type 1 diabetes and sometimes I feel a little overwhelmed. He has reasonably good control and is very open to talking to me about his illness. I am always allowed to ask what the meter says when he measures, he uses a freestyle and even showed me how to take a reading in case I ever find him unconscious or fear of him having a hypo while sleeping. I know how to use the glucagon shot and know where it is.
I have witnessed a couple of moderate hypos and generally they passed quickly without any severe mood changes on his part nor with any significant amount of anxiety on my part. I think by now I have more emergency carbohydrate rations that fit in my hand bag than I actually have handbags to fit them in (mainly small cans of regular soda and dextrose). Generally in day to day life everything is fine and I feel safe and confident enough that I could act in an emergency. However sometimes his values are too high or too low for little to no apparent reason (a few weeks back he had an ear infection that caused a few highs). He says, and I completely trust him on this, that this is just what will happen every once in a while and because he regularly checks his values and corrects on time its no reason to worry. But sometimes I can't help but be rather scared or worried for him, especially when values are high. I'm a little scared to show or tell him when his values worry or scare me because obviously its his body thats on the rollercoaster ride not mine. Are there any partners of T1Ds here that have similar feelings? How do you cope with them?
Sometimes I can also tell that it really frustrates him when values are low or high, especially if this persists for a few hours. I always feel an urge to help and support him when this happens, but I know that practically, aside from getting something to eat from the kitchen, there is nothing I can do. I have asked him whether there is something I can do to help him on hyper/hypo situations and he said that there is nothing for me to do most of the time. None the less I can't help wishing that I could take some of that feeling of being alone and frustrated away from him. Is there anything you have found helps in a partnership in these situations? What do you like your spouse to do when tight control seems difficult, the diabetes is frustrating you or things are just generally being a bit of a pain?
