KITLIVING
the hospital with two sets of insulin pens
and an Accu-Chek blood glucose meter.
"We were actually lucky, looking back,"
says Smith. "We worked hard to keep
Evan independent, let him do sleepovers,
and so on. But we were always looking
for ways to improve his life with diabetes.
We were told about an awareness day
about insulin pumps and CGM being held
at Addenbrooke's Hospital. We all went
and, as soon as we saw it, we decided to
fund the Dexcom system for Evan. It's the
best money we've ever spent. Even when
he is away from us we can see what was
going on as the system has the capacity
to share his glucose levels with us. It
meant that the parents of the kids he was
staying with had that back up too - they
knew that we knew what was going on."
The temptation with any parent is to
obsess about their child's glucose data.
Smith acknowledges that, saying: "These
days I try not to look at it all the time. It can
easily become an obsession. Everyone's
diabetes is different - we have had to
embrace the chaos, and just try our best.
It's all we can do."
Soon after, another open day came
along at Addenbrooke's so the family
went back to take a better look at insulin
pumps. "It was great to be able to hold the
pumps, to weigh them in your hands and
ask questions," says Smith. "Evan chose
the Omnipod. We knew we could not
decide for him, or force him to accept our
choice. We didnt' think that would work -
he needed to like his kit. He'd done a year
continued over
Smith's son Evan, who uses a Dexcom CGM sensor and is
on an Omnipod pump from Insulet (pictured below).