Life is complex enough, especially while in school, with taking on activities, sports, keeping up with grades, managing time, and more. However for people with Type 1 diabetics doing all of these things is more complicated.
With monitoring blood sugar in sports, blood sugar dropping in the middle of class, they have multiple things they have to manage during their school day.
According to the Association of Diabetics Care & Education Services, “High or low blood sugars can happen at any time and with school stress and hormones added to all of this, it can get chaotic and difficult to deal with.”
The stress of having to manage blood sugar, and making sure to still make up the time for completing assignments while in the nurses for low blood sugar, can be a difficult process.
“It’s nice that the school and teachers do good when my blood sugar drops and I need to sit down,” Hudson Smedley (6), diabetic, said.
According to The American Diabetes Association, “School nurses are required to have a safety plan and protocol that is shared with the students guardian, in case of emergency or just in general for the diabetics day to day care.”
This is called Diabetes Medical Management Plan (DMMP). Outside of Nurses being in program with the diabetics plan, it is also encouraged for a few other staff members to be of understanding of the diabetics DMMP. However even with these plans, sometimes things can still be difficult.
“I really wished the schools were able to have extra pods and Dexcoms when mine fails,” Smedley said.
Smedley explains part of the frustration of dealing with being a diabetic while participating in sports.
“It’s still frustrating when I’m in the gym and playing and I have to sit out because my blood sugar is dropping, but I know I don’t have a choice,”
According to the American Diabetes Association, “More than 160,000 children and adolescents with type 1 diabetes are enrolled in public and private schools in the United States.”
Therefore, it is extremely important that schools and school nurses are equipped with all the tools needed to properly care for their students.
Many do not know that diabetics are required to take endocrinology appointments for specialists to check and make sure everything in the diabetic’s body is being monitored safely, and to critique any problems that need to be altered in the diabetic’s plan.
“There are days when I have diabetic appointments that are mandatory,or I have excessively high blood sugar through the night, which leads to little amounts of sleep, and my teachers expect me to be fully tuned in and still there.” Bella Burwick (11), a diabetic, said.
Blood sugar doesn’t just stop being an issue in the middle of the night, so it’s nothing new for a diabetic to be up at three in the morning managing their high blood sugar with insulin, or their lows with a juice box or anything that helps blood sugar rise.
A little empathy and understanding go a long way, so it is important to be conscious of the day-to-day struggles and issues people with autoimmune diseases go through.
