Mornings With A Pre-Teen Type 1 Diabetic With Autism Who Snuck High Carb Snacks for Breakfast

It shouldn’t surprise me, but it does. This morning was rough.

This morning, I woke up to Dan’s glucometer buzzing. His blood sugars were high. Instead of jumping out of bed to face the noise, I shrunk under the blanket and hid my head in the pillow. Antonio pulled himself tighter into me, then said, “I guess I need to go and find out what is going on.”

I replied, “I’m turtling right now.”

He answered, “Like usual–.” He quickly reversed his words, “That’s not true. Sorry.”

But it’s kind of true. I will turtle when I know Antonio is there and I know nothing I contribute will make anything better. It’s usually when I’m feeling salty and I don’t have the love in my heart to say anything constructive.

Sometimes these kinds of situations happen when he’s already left for work and I have no choice but to suck it up and deal with the impending arguments that inevitably come when the boy has high blood sugar levels and he hasn’t taken his medications. It is a blizzard of stress for him and for us.

I listen as Antonio opens the bedroom door. I can hear Dan crunching on something while he watches a cartoon. Antonio’s voice booms and I cringe. “Cheetos Dan! Really?! Your blood sugar is high. Have you taken any insulin this morning?”

“F#$% you!”

We’re off to a great start. I grab my phone and start scrolling. I’m ignoring this. There’s nothing I can do to contribute here. We are headed to a meltdown.

Antonio yells at Dan about not helping with the dishes or cleaning his room. Dan screams back obscenities. I’m not sure why we are talking about doing dishes right now. This is really not the time. I’m feeling guilty because these are dishes I was supposed to do last night, but my back started hurting and I left everything in the sink to be taken care of later. Antonio takes a softer tone, “I’m sorry Dan. I just need you to help out more. I’m going to make breakfast and I want you to please clean your room.”

“I hate cleaning my room! You never reward me for doing good things. Matt and Angie compliment me when I do good things! You never do!”

His rantings descend into profanity again.

At this point, I can’t hide anymore. I have to pee too much. I get out of bed and try to walk by the fight slowly as I make a beeline for the restroom. After I get dressed for work, I find Dan standing next to the refrigerator. He is calm. He is loving. He is soft spoken. I hear words of contrition and apology. The house is calm. I walk by him and he flinches. I am confused by this move. He whispers, “I thought you were going to hurt me.”

It’s all an act. The contrition. The apologies. He knows I am not going to hurt him. He’s faking and it ticks me off.

I reply, “Well, for a minute there I thought you were genuinely sorry, but you pushed it with that one. You know I’m not going to hurt you.”

Antonio said, “Have you taken your corrective dose yet Dan?”

Dan snapped back, “No!”

The beast is still with us.

He softens his tone. “I just want to go over to Matt and Angie’s so I can help them with the baby.”

Antonio, who is so sick of the game says, “I am not rewarding you by letting you go over there when you’re acting like this.”

Dan replies with the old familiar profanity, “F#@% you!!”

I find my keys and leave for the office. After opening the office and signing in, I heard more yelling, more profanity, and was that furniture falling? How did that happen? Should I stay away? What is going on? I decide to go and see if I can help.

When I come up the stairs, I see Dan at his computer. Antonio is calmly on the couch, and one of the kitchen chairs is lying on the ground. Antonio says, “We’re okay.”

Dan grumbles at his computer. I sit next to him to see what he’s working on. He is googling images for his class presentation on Brazil.

I ask softly, “Do you need your cord for the computer?”

Dan retorts, “I’ve got 7 hours! I’m fine! Just go away!”

Antonio replies, “I’ve got this. You can go back to work.”

He’s taken his meds. He’s taken his insulin. He’s working on school work.

In about an hour, things will be calm again. We might even let him go over to watch his cousin for a couple of hours. I will take him to his dental cleaning. We will have a meeting with his team at school where they will all say nice things about Dan and compliment him on his great strides. Any other adult who sees him and talks to him will tell me how much they love him and how he is such a thoughtful and kind little boy.

And I will smile and feel genuine warmth. I am so happy that they get to see this side of him. Honestly, if he is only ever rude to his dad and me, I’m okay with that. Who am I that I should escape the wrath of an angry child? My biggest worry is that his unkindness and his inability to control his emotions will sneak into other areas of his life and cause him to fail in areas where we want so badly for him to succeed.

This is life with a preteen kid with type 1 diabetes and autism. This is life. It is exhausting and every moment feels so important, so huge. Every word feels so momentous. Every manipulation feels like a step towards the dark side. You begin to feel like nothing you say or do makes any sort of difference and you want so badly just to stop trying because your deepest darkest fear is that you are somehow contributing to his struggles.

I will comfort myself with this. Whether we’re saying or doing all the wrong things, we are here for this child. He has a warm place to sleep. He has food. He has medication. We take him to his appointments. We listen. We play. We share. We are with him day and day out. They say children learn more from what you do than what you say. I hope someday we’ll see him there for his family day in and day out. I can only hope that being there is enough.

I love him. I really really do. And also, this is hard. It is really really hard.

If our downstairs neighbor is reading this, I’m so sorry for the falling furniture and the loud swearing.

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PS: https://genesiseve.family.blog/2020/12/14/a-necessary-post-script-to-this-mornings-misadventures/