How Do You Measure Success?

I can’t say how most parents measure how they are successful as a parent, but for us, being parents of two children with diabetes, our success is measured in small and unusual ways.  The most obvious success is that our children are alive every day when we wake up.  I think that we take that for granted more often these days now that their blood sugars are more stable.  Our most recent successes came from numbers.  On December 8th, I took both Andy and Katie to a new pediatric endocrinologist.  (Our wonderful Dr. Kerrigan in Winston-Salem decided to move to Knoxville to be closer to family and we will miss him dearly.)  The first amazing number was their blood sugar when the lab tech checked them.  Both of them were at 110.  Then he checked their HbA1c and if we didn’t know they were diabetic, you certainly couldn’t tell from that number.  Katie was at 5.5% and Andy was at 5.8% (for those of you non-diabetics, 5 is considered normal and anything below 7% is great for a diabetic)! 

The other success is Katie’s growth and development.  She had her 4 month check up on Friday, the 18th.  She is now a healthy 13 lbs 1 oz and 24.25 inches long.  This is the part where she will start (we hope) to outdo her brother.  At this point in Andy’s life, he was very frail and had lost nearly 3 pounds and all muscle control.  As I am writing this, Katie is now one day shy (in age) of the day Andy went into the hospital.  Even still to this day it is so hard to think about how sick he was and we didn’t see it.  However, because of him, Katie won’t have to go through all of that pain and suffering that he did.  Katie has also now had her first taste of cereal!  I gave it to her on Sunday and of course she spit out most of it, but she was so cute in her little high chair and bib with cereal all over her face.  I will post pics of her when I get them developed.

Success is definitely a numbers game when you have a diabetic baby.  I just hope that I can recognize other successes along the way in their lives.  Their long, happy, healthy lives that they are now able to lead thanks to some wonderful doctors who discovered this new treatment.  Who knows what tomorrow will bring?