Me, My Brother and Diabetes
8 Months ago my Brother was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes, it’s strange how quickly things can change as a result of something that seems so simple. You read about diabetes in your science lessons and you see it in leaflets but you think nothing of it, it doesn’t seem to be a serious disease it’s not usually fatal so must people overlook it. Certainly they wouldn’t think it could have such a drastic effect on a family as it inevitably does. When they diagnosed him, my brother had been slowly been digesting himself for about a week just trying to get enough glucose to sustain himself. The night we found out he’d gone into hospital was pretty horrible, we’d been joking about him being ill, because he’d been drinking loads of water, but no one really believed anything was seriously wrong. Seeing my brother lying in a hospital bed with a load of tubes in him was horrible, I’ve always got on really well with my brother, maybe it’s because I’m really a little kid at heart but I’ve always been on his wavelength. Before he was diagnosed he was a perfectly normal 12 year old, perhaps a little crazy in the head (family trait) but perfectly happy and great fun to muck around with, then the diabetes came along. For quite a while he just shut himself away, which was terrible because no one could talk to him or ask what’s wrong. It was strange because it didn’t really hit us until a while afterwards, but I suddenly realised that i’d basically lost my brother, the guy who always used to sit and listen to music with me and keep me company whilst i worked, was locked somewhere deep beneath the layers of diabetes induced misery. Things did improve a bit but because of the diabetes his moods were all over the place, sometimes he’d be absolutely manic and bouncing off the walls, sometimes he’d be completely depressed and not want to do anything, and sometimes but not very often he’d be his normal self, just how he used to be. That’s the worst thing about it, the little glimpses of the brother I used to know made it hurt all the more that nine times out of ten he was gone for good. So it seemed that my relationship with my brother was tainted for good, and for a few months that certainly seemed to be the case, but gradually as he became more used to his new situation, the brother i once knew began to re emerge. Nowadays things are a lot better than they were and perhaps the biggest step forwards is now, even when he’s really upset he’ll still come to me and talk, and instead of shutting me out he’s beginning to let me back in. Sure it’s not quite the same as the relationship we had before, but at least nowadays he’ll jump on my back and muck around or tease me back when i joke about him, instead of just clamming up and refusing to talk like he used to. Tom Stubington
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