Lisa's Story

I am a mum to 4 amazing children. My husband was diagnosed at age 5 in 1975 with type 1 diabetes. As you can imagine, or not, he has seen a lot of changes and growth with the monitoring and management of diabetes.

In 1996, our 2 year old son was diagnosed and it was a constant worry with monitoring him, numerous finger pricks and insulin injections, hypos and hyperglycemia events, DKA and hospital admissions. At times I would be chasing him around the house just to give him an injection, as it hurt his little body. He would scream and cry and it was heartbreaking. When he started kindy and school it was all about educating teachers for signs and symptoms of hypos and being confident to do finger pricks if needed. There were frequent phone calls to come in to collect him after a bad hypo or extremely high BSL which had him vomiting and feeling lethargic, missing precious time off school. Those teachers and admin staff were amazing.

Then in 2001, our 7 month old daughter became unwell and yip, diagnosed as type 1 diabetic. The blood glucose machines were better but still having to do heel pricks to start with, then finger pricks. It was so hard to try and get great control with a baby and there were a few visits to the local childrens ward, who got to know us very well, between the 2 children's visits. Once again, kindy and school staff were amazing.

The diabetic camps for kids was great and gave the kids the opportunity to be around others who had the same daily routine as them and had to do what they do day in and day out.

The diabetic clinic specialists, nurses and admin were a huge part of our lives until they turned 16. They were like a second family, always there for guidance and advice, especially during those early teen years when denial and anger played a big role in the kids lives and control.

The pumps came in and we were able to trial them for both kids but the cost was too great for us to sustain these, so back to injecting multiple times a day.

As the years have gone by, the introduction of better testing machines and insulin delivery has been great, but as always, cost has been a barrier, for not only my children, but alot of NZ families out there, especially if you have more than one child with diabetes.

The funding of GCMs would make such a difference to so many NZers living with this condition. They never asked for diabetes and did not get it through anything they did wrong. This condition is something that they live with every day and worry that they will pass it on to their children and that there will be no way they can afford the GCMs for their children either.

GCMs take the biggest worry away, not knowing your childs BSL reading and stopping those endless finger pricks. It means peace of mind when they are away from home as parents can monitor from their cell phones, and get alerts when BSLs are out of range which limits the possibilities of extreme hypos and DKA episodes.

These would have been a godsend when my children were so young and vulnerable. So lets get them funded for the next young generation so them and their family can have some piece of mind.

Lisa