First day back at school, emotional morning

 I’m finding this morning, very emotional.

It’s the first day back at school for my son.

I knew this morning would be hard because he’s been in bed until about 4 pm most days over the holidays.

When my alarm went off at 0700, It wasn’t welcome. And I wondered if my son would get up.

But he did.

And he appeared downstairs dressed in his school uniform. So far so good.

I was in the kitchen, making him a sandwich.

I cleared the decks, filled the dishwasher and tidied it up the boxes from the floor.

He still managed to fall over them.

And he left on time for the bus.

It’s a small miracle.

Since May I’ve been walking every day.

Throughout the school holiday holidays, I’ve been walking every morning, nice and early.

Today, obviously I wasn’t about to do that. I was getting my child up and ready for school.

At 15, there shouldn’t be any role for me at all in getting my child up and ready for school. But with his condition of type 1 diabetes, he does need, or benefit, or appreciate my support -  or at least I appreciate being able to give him my support.

On one of the ‘mums with children with diabetes’ pages on Facebook somebody has not been able to send their child to school today because the diabetes has prevented them from going. It should’ve been their first day at secondary school. And this reminded me of the day my son was diagnosed with diabetes.

It was 10 days into secondary school. He’d only just started and only just started to make friends with all that new School, new friends, new teachers, new class, all the new stuff about corridors and different rooms. From a village primary school to a secondary school with 1600 pupils. The last thing you need is for that start to be made difficult. But he went into hospital with DKA and was there for over a week.

Of course that saved his life so I’m grateful and I understood how this mum felt not being able to send her child in on day one. So I did something unusual and added a comment on a public page saying yes I understand, this is what happened for me. 

As I checked the daily theme for walking on the diabetes UK page, as my walking is to raise money and awareness for diabetes. Today’s theme was ‘books and literature’. I immediately thought of Mum and her writing. I’m meant to post a picture on the page each day. And today I’ve taken a picture of mum’s book which I published in her honour after she had died. She had pancreatic cancer and in fact because of that did experience all the fingerprinting and insulin injection of diabetes because the tumour blocked her pancreas. And then I played the recording I’ve made on her birthday this year. Where I read aloud a letter she wrote to me when I went to university. So it’s been a very emotional day. There’s only been two hours so far, thankfully I’m not going to work because I think I’d be a wreck.

A post in the recording of the letter my mum wrote to me when I went to university. Neither of my parents supported me financially when I went to university and it was hard. My father changed the locks and I’ve never been back. But in her own way, mum did support m: Mum subdivided her home into single rooms to let. Not just converting every single room into a bedroom for someone else to rent out but subdividing rooms and corridors with thin walls to make extra rooms and even putting a bed in the lean to. It wasn’t a big house. It was a Victorian terrace very close to the station. So close, we heard all the announcements and the House shook when the fast trains went past.

Mum also kept cats. There were many cats and many kittens as well as the many lodgers. The house was chaos and crowded. Mum lived in a single room with her husband surrounded by all of their belongings which they sold off piece meal to make ends meet.

Mums bipolar disorder made it difficult for her to hold down work. And the mania also meant that she was highly creative when she wasn’t sobbing on the floor with depression.

When she died, there was very little time after diagnosis and before the cancer took her. So I published her most completed work in her memory.

I should add that Tim died from type two diabetes complications and that mum‘s cancer blocked her pancreas so she endured the finger pricking and insulin injections of a type one diabetic in her final few weeks. Richard and Esther in the letter are two of the lodgers. Richard works as a signal on the railway so it was jolly convenient for him!