Thanks for taking the time to visit my JustGiving page.

 

3rd November 2010 our lives changed completely especially for my 2 year old son. I can't begin to put it into words of how it felt when your 2 year old boy who has always been happy, healthy, amazing suddenly is lying in a hospital bed with drips in his arms and legs and we were told he has type 1 diabetes. For my son bless him I can always remember the screams as they put the canular into his arms and legs and how I felt useless at not being able to take this away from him. Then I did not know the full extent as to what both his life ahead and our lives would be like. I never knew how exhausting it would make you feel with all the worry of type 1 diabetes. The first 2 months were the worse 2 months of my life. I don't know how we got through it. Our daily lives now involve bloods tests at breakfast, then food followed by insulin injection which is done in my son's bum. 10 am snack must work out 15g of carbs for this. At 12 midday my son has his long release insulin which again is in his bum and is a large dose so stings and hurts. Then after this it is another blood test then lunch followed by another insulin injection. 3pm snack then blood tea and insulin injection then at supper time which can be anytime between 6.45pm and 8.30pm harry has his bloods checked then a 10g snack. We then have to keep an eye on him all through the day and night as when he runs around his blood levels drop if they drop below 4 he is having a hypo and the worse things of a hypo if untreated it can lead to unconsiousness and coma. We only test our son if we think his levels are high or low and then treat him. The worse thing about type 1 diabetes is that my son gets upset, angry, shouts, hits because when the sugar levels are high and low it also affects your behaviour. Before my son's diagnosis I like so many people do not have a clue at what type 1 diabetes is caused and what chidlren/babies lives and their parents lives are like after this.

It will be 3 years on 3rd November 2013 that my son was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes. My son is now on 5 insulin injections a day every day for life and can have 8 to 20 blood tests a day depending on activities, if he is ill, if he has ketones, when he has a hypo you have to retest the bloods to make sure the bloods are then over 4ml. Throughout every day my son is absolutely amazing he always smiles even at 2am, 4 am it does not make no difference to the time of day even when he has low bloods 4ml or below (hypo) he still manages to smile.

 

We are a very happy, very lucky, family and we apprecate everything that our son has brought to our life he is absolutely amazing. We of course wished he did not have type 1 diabetes like all the families we know with children with type 1 diabetes we would love for our children to run around for 2 hours without the need for blood tests, hypo treatments and the worry, of course we would love our children to go to sleep at night and for them to have sleep without us having to test bloods, wake them to give them juice and for them to have a restful nights sleep without all this. We would love for our children to beable to eat what they want or like my son tells me "mum I just want to eat my food without bloods and injections" It is heart breaking knowing we can't do this. But on a positive note I look at what I can do and that is what we have been doing since my son was diagnosed. Helping other families who have had children diagnosed with type 1 diabetes, fundraising for Juvenile diabetes research foundation by doing sponsored walks, me arranging charity raffles or doing photography in exchange for the person donating via my just giving site. You name it we are not going to let type 1 diabetes rule our lives. We will do our best to help others, help jdrf and also we sponsor a lovely little girl in India who can;t afford insulin. Every day I consider myself to be the luckiest mum in the whole world as if anyone wants to see for a week what my son has to have done 24 hours a day every day he never moans, he always wakes me up with the most amazing smile, cuddles and words saying how much he loves me. My son is absolutely amazing and we are so proud of him.

 

My son has last year 2012 did a sponsored walk in aid of jdrf raising £302.41 on his web site www.justgiving.com/jenny-potter01

 

This year 2013 we intend to do the midlands sponsor walk again for jdrf.

 

We hope you can sponsor us so we can fund research via jdrf for vital new treatments, etc for all the amazing children, babies with type 1 diabetes.

 

 

Many thanks

 

 

Jenny

 

 

My aim is to raise some money for Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation I am doing this in a number of ways I am going to do an auction of some of my music photography to raise funds. I am also going to ask when someone places an order or books me to do any photography I am going to ask all my clients to make a donation via this in exchange I will do offers on the photography etc so both are happy.

I am also going to sell some prints with the money going to JDRF. I am not sure what I am going to raise but I am hoping what I raise will go towards the research that is needed so that perhaps someone's child in the future can be saved from having to go through what my son does.

We made sure even when my son was in hospital to know how important it is to be positive to not feel sorry for ourselves or my son as he is such an amazing brave boy I want everyone to be proud of him. Just because my son has type 1 diabetes it does not mean that he can't do anything. 7 months on and I could be a Doctor myself now I have managed my son's daily injections, bloods and the hundreds of hypo's he has had. I live life the best we can we still manage to have lots of fun and my son is still the amazing boy he has always been.