Logbooks, Lows and Larry

Before, much earlier, a year or two prior to Lia’s diagnosis when all of our children still lived at home, including our now-collegian son, one of the kids would be given the task of setting the table for dinner. Then if they lingered too long afterward we would ask

A Lattice Work Community

When I first worked with Les B. we were both Lieutenants serving under the same Brigade Commander in Operation Desert Shield on the Saudi Arabian peninsula of the Persian Gulf. It was a strange and difficult time for both of us and though our paths in the war never crossed,

Pilgrimage

Shortly after our eight year old daughter Lia had been moved to the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit late in the evening of December 23, the same day of her diagnosis for type 1 diabetes, the nurse working nightshift came in to check her vitals and IVs and she asked how

A Simple Question

Things are getting better now, aren’t they? I was standing outside my daughter’s school preparing to go in for a Valentine’s Day party when my sister asked me this question over the phone. I paused only briefly, my hand on the door. It had been seven weeks

Compromise

How the dispute ended with us and sugar was not so much a compromise as it was a surrender on our part. But since surrender conjures in the mind images of winners and losers, making it a hard word for at least one of the two to swallow, especially if

War on Sugar

When it was just the five of us and no diabetes it was the desire Franca and I had of eating healthier foods, produced more sustainably and responsibly, that drove us to declare war on sugar. It started, as many such conflicts do, as a simple disagreement over turf: our

Without Envy

When the three of us arrived at this lavish resort there was much excitement and gaiety. It was sunny and warm and the hotel and landscaped grounds were elegant and stunning. We had travelled before as a family to other various interesting places — Paris, Rome, Belgium, Germany — but those trips

Outreach

Our first month living with diabetes ended with our daughter, Lia, and Franca and I retreating for a weekend to a posh golf resort in the central part of our state. We were there to attend a statewide family outreach event sponsored by the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation and we

Fortunate 2 Know U

There were many ways our family and friends and other people we knew showed their concern for Lia and our family in the days following her diagnosis. The best one was the visit by John, Jenny and Jessie, who detoured their travel plans to see Lia in the hospital on

Back to School

Two and a half weeks after Lia’s diagnosis she returned to school. The holiday break was a godsend, giving us time to get our arms around her diabetes, so by the time classes started back up we all had become lay experts in the field, at least in terms