The countdown has begun...

We are ever inching toward next week when our family will have a celebration. Each year on January 27th we have a party. We like to refer to the event as a D-aversary because it marks the date our son was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes. I know that sounds odd, diagnosed with an illness that has no cure and yet have a celebration to mark the date. Yes. That is the day our son, then only 6 years old, received his first shot of insulin. January 27th is the day our son's life was saved from what only 80 years before had been a certain death.

Our D-aversary consists of the meal we had that night, KFC. We bake a cake and decorate it however Daniel thinks it should be, last year we decorated the cake to look like his insulin pump. We hand out certificates to recognize the hard work and milestones that have been met in the past year, not only by Daniel but by his entire team of family and friends who help him live with this 24/7. We have been known to have a little air guitar and air drums at the party to evoke everyone's inner rock star. We celebrate the life, the precious gift of insulin, the tenacity it takes to live every day when your immune system has disabled your pancreas.

This year is a milestone. This year is 5 years of living with Type 1 diabetes. I feel as though we need a bit more for this celebration. I will be working on ideas for this one because I want to show my son that we appreciate every year, every moment we have been given with him. I have to say that not all tears that I shed on D-aversary day are ones of joy. I am still only a mama, I remember in such vivid detail the events leading up to, the day itself, and the time after. Traumatic really does not come close to describing what a family goes through when a child is diagnosed with an illness that has no cure. When you come so close to losing a precious little one simply because you do not see the warning signs or maybe because you are in denial that they are even there, it changes you. The disease changes your child, your family, your world. I am thankful every single day for this now 11 year old that makes me crazy and for his sisters who do so even more. I can not imagine, nor do I want to, my life without them in it. On that day there was a period of time that I believed I was losing my child to something I did not understand and until he received that first shot of insulin, I was.