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Last week, Billi Mucklow and Andy Carroll revealed that their son Arlo had been diagnosed with type 1 diabetes.
The doting parents took to Instagram to share the news that they’d found out their "beautiful" son had type 1 diabetes just two weeks ago as they praised the eight year old for being “so brave” and “happy” following the diagnosis.
Like Billi and Andy, Vicky Picton and husband Jay James know the reality of being parents to a child with type 1 diabetes. In August 2022, their son Franklin, now four, was diagnosed with the autoimmune condition following a trip to A&E. Here, Vicky tells their story…
“In the space of a week, my family’s life had turned upside down. It felt as though my husband Jay and I had gone back to parenting a newborn. We had to relearn how to look after our three year old son, Franklin.
It all started last August when Franklin started becoming extremely thirsty and began needing a drink more than usual. Each night he’d need a bottle of water and each morning he’d wake up wet. It was hot at the time, so I thought it was strange but that it was probably down to the weather.
However, three days later our lives changed forever. We were in A&E for a different reason when a blood test found that Franklin’s blood sugar levels were very high. We were taken to Bristol Children’s Hospital where we were told that he had type 1 diabetes and that we were lucky to have been diagnosed before he’d gone into DKA (diabetic ketoacidosis) which is a coma. Hearing the words that he had diabetes was a complete shock.
It was a lot to deal with emotionally. As soon as he was diagnosed, Jay and I went through so much training just so we could keep our son alive. We spent a week in the hospital learning how to give injections. We weren’t allowed to take Franklin off of the ward and into the room next door until we’d learned how to treat a hypo, just in case an emergency happened. It was as if we were studying for a university degree.
Leaving the hospital was a relief, but it came with so much pressure. My job as Franklin’s mum is to keep him safe and suddenly everything felt so uncertain. I’d gone from worrying about whether his hair looked nice to worrying about whether I’d packed what I referred to as his 'survival kit' for a day at preschool.
Our daily routine also changed and things we took for granted disappeared. Meal times saw us carb count every single thing that went into his mouth and in the early days we had to give him seven injections a day. At night time, we’d creep into his room and doing a finger prick test just to make sure he was ok. Now he has a continuous glucose monitor which measures his blood sugar, but we still need to double check.
Looking after diabetes is a 24/7 job and it’s never not on my mind. We're almost a year on and I still have days where I break down thinking about how hard it is. I heard someone say that people with diabetes make 300 more decisions a day than normal and I agree. There’s so much fatigue that comes along with just getting by.
Some days Franklin will have moments where he says that he hates diabetes, but his resilience has been incredible. JDRF gave him a Rufus bear when he was diagnosed. It’s a teddy bear which has a lot of injection sites mapped on its body and for Franklin it made him feel less alone. Seeing him be so positive is what keeps the rest of us going.
His older sister Nova has also been incredible. She held a pyjama day at school for World Diabetes Day. Everyone came in their pyjamas and she raised £1,500 for charity. Jay and I are currently working to raise awareness of type 1 diabetes and we have some exciting things coming up. Given that we knew nothing about the autoimmune condition last year, it means so much to our family now.
My advice for Billi or for any parent dealing with a new diagnosis is to take every day as it comes. No two days are the same. Parents can put a lot of pressure on themselves to get everything perfect, but charities including the JDRF have been invaluable – as have the online type 1 diabetes community. It can be so lonely when you’re up at 3am treating a hypo and in those moments it’s scary too. I can write on Instagram that I’m up and someone will reply saying ‘me too’.
There's a lot of guilt and grief that comes with the diagnosis but it’s nobody’s fault and it's important to remember that.”
Spotting the signs of diabetes is crucial. For more information and support, visit JDRF.org.uk.
To follow Vicky and Jay’s journey, visit @victoriapicton and @jayjames on Instagram.
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