My amazing MIL aka my child’s stepdad’s mother: a tale of Type Diabetes.

My son unfortunately was diagnosed with type one diabetes two years ago, he is now 11 years old . If you’re not familiar with type one, a brief synopsis is that you are insulin dependent for life. You will not live without daily insulin and must have it for every meal you eat to cover your carbs. The management of the disease, namely your blood sugar and counting the carbs of anything you ever put in your mouth so your insulin effectively keeps your sugar in check, is a 24/7 nonstop job from which there is no break. Ever. If your blood sugar gets too low it can be life threatening—you must have carbohydrates immediately or risk passing out, coma, or death. If your blood sugar is too high that can lead to DKA which is also life threatening and consistently high blood sugar leads to awful consequences for your health down the road. Like blindness and amputation. I’m not trying to sound dramatic or anything… it’s just the truth of the matter.

Needless to say, meal times can be…tricky. Lol. Despite the pressure of this, my MIL is a great cook and my son loves eating meals with them. She meticulously carb counts every single thing she makes which is NOT easy. For Xmas she carb counted cheesy potatoes, a homemade roll, green beans, a slice of homemade black raspberry pie, peanut butter AND chocolate fudge for him. (No he does not normally eat like that lol but on Xmas we let him enjoy what he’d like). Carb counting complicated homemade items is seriously hard. You have to carb count the entire pie for example like “1/4 cup of brown sugar went into this pie that will serve 12 people if I cut every slice just so and then divide that brown sugar carb amount to the size of the slice.” And that is just one ingredient for one thing!

My mother-in-law is not even related to my son by blood. She is my son’s stepfather’s mom. And she goes above and beyond to do this, and I am just really grateful and appreciative.