I did something very, very unwise today.
It started out innocently. I was looking through old pictures, hoping to find some great ones to post tomorrow in celebration of our nieces 5th birthday. In my search I came across this picture:
Looking at the date I realized that it was taken exactly one year before he was diagnosed. Just my boy with his most favorite Bear ever in a picture that we took for his Star Student poster in Kindergarten. He looked so happy, so healthy, so rosy and warm in this picture. It got me thinking. He couldn't have been sick yet. Not here in this picture, so when did it happen? When did my healthy little boy disappear?
I started looking. I went back, pouring over pictures, analyzing every smile, every time he looked like there might be shadows under his eyes, any time ho looked slightly tired. Was this it? Was he sick here?
How could I possibly have missed it in my own child? Maybe because, right after his first day of school picture was taken, the engine went out on our van on the way there? Suddenly, at 7 weeks pregnant, I found myself under unimaginable stresses that wouldn't stop for the next year? (They still haven't, truth be told.) Stresses that caused my anxiety and depression to flare up in a way I don't remember it ever doing in my lifetime. Was I so self absorbed that I missed what his little body was trying to tell us?
What kind of mother misses these signs?! How is it that I didn't notice that my son was fighting a battle inside? That his weight loss wasn't just due to the fact that he sprouted up 2.5 inches in a little over a month? When did it start, these signs that I missed? Signs that a good mother surely would have picked up on!
By Christmas, surely. You can obviously see it in him by Christmas. Was it before that? How long did I let his tiny little immune system suffer on its own while I missed what was going on right in front of me. By February we knew. He was so thin and so tired, but his A1C told part of the story. That he'd been battling for much, much longer than we'd known. They assured us that we weren't at fault, even while talking about how they had never seen an A1C that high in real life, but how do you not notice?! I'm his mother! How could I not see then what is so easy to see in pictures now?!
And so I went on for quite awhile. Kicking myself. Angry at myself. Questioning everything from the day that we took that amazing picture of him in February 2017. Questioning everything that happened in the months that led up to his diagnosis.
But then something happened. I started coming upon the new pictures. Life on the other side of T1D. I watched as his face became rounder again, and the color returned to his cheeks. I watched my happy little boy meet his tiny sister again, and cried over how he'd said to her "I hope you don't have diabetes." I smiled at his goofy soccer pictures, the first season where his coaches had to be educated about something other than his speech and muscle tone, and I laughed outright at pictures of him in his spring musical. He was so proud to have a line! I absolutely beamed at my Doctor holding his little companion safe and close after reassuring me over and over again that "I've got this, Mama! I won't let her fall ever!"
Today he's outside, soaking wet, in the middle of an hours long neighborhood water fight. I made him stop for a moment just to snap a picture, and that picture tells the story. That picture shows a happy, healthy, wonderful little warrior who never, not once, stopped smiling.
He is amazing. I have said before that his story will not be Sebastian the Diabetic. He is just Sebastian, and yes, he happens to have diabetes, but that's only a small part of who he is. As you can see, he is happy, and healthy, and amazing. Nothing that he, or I, could have done would have stopped the last year or so of his life from happening. It is unwise, and unhealthy, for me to do what I did today, because it doesn't change anything. Because it makes our story about the diabetes when it really should be about how amazingly strong my little human is!
I almost turned these happy, wonderful memories into something dark and ugly. ComicCon, first days of school, football, and holidays shouldn't be about the "what ifs" and "was he sick here?". They should be about meeting our heroes, starting new adventures, cheering on our team, and comfort and joy! I'll tuck these pictures away to look at again. Not to cry and worry over, but to smile and remember fondly the amazing memories I have with my son. Here's to many more!
