Thread: Terrified
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Old 06-10-2010, 04:11 AM
gette gette is offline
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Join Date: Jun 2010
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I was reading all the post and I'm not a parent with a diabetic child, but I am a teacher and a Type 2 diabetic. I teach 2nd grade in TN and this year I had a diabetic child in my class. Her mother, the school nurse and I had a plan on how things would work concerning testing and giving shots. She always ate lunch with her class. She would check her own BG levels in the classroom, she felt comfortable enough to do that. However for shots she would go to the nurse's office by herself, especially after lunch. There were times that the nurse was out, I would help the child with her insulin, but she would go to the restroom to give herself the shot. I never pressured her to check her BG or give herself a shot in the class, I always asked what she wanted to do and she would make the decision. I think she felt more comfortable because I was dealing with the same disease she was. She carried a small backpack with her glucometer, insulin pen, extra needles for the pen, sugar tablets for lows, and snacks. She carried this to recess, to PE or she had it at her desk or I cared for it during assemblies. The other students were warned at the beginning of the year about taking other peoples stuff and/ or looking in other people's bags, so they never messed with it.

As a parent you might want to talk to the child's teacher and the nurse and come up with a plan on how to "treat" your child; let them know what they can and cannot do on their own, educational material on how to spot high and low BGs and specifically what happens to your child when they have a high or low, how you want the child to be treated and how the child feels about being diabetic. In TN, the nurse has to keep logs on each diabetic child- BG levels, insulin units given, amount of carbs eaten and where the shot was given. My parent even got a note from the child's doctor on what she needed to have in the classroom and how to handle her highs and what needed to be done if she had a low.

I hope this gives you some insight on how a teacher works with a diabetic child and her parent. I know every school system/ district is different, but I believe that every child should be treated with respect whether or not they have diabetes.
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