This post is nothing to do with education as I believe that when you have a young child with T1D their safety and your sanity with allowing someone else to have control over your little ones life is the first thing you think about. I also should say that this isn't a education blog.....
Anyway our T1DD turned 4 years old this year and as you know 4 means the start of the official schooling program. After living and breathing everything T1D for the last year and a half just making sure everyone wakes up in the morning you can imagine how our heart rate started to run when the thought of having a teacher who probably has no history with T1D not to mention having another 20 children to manage.
My wife and I both knew, well I knew it had to happen and my wife didn't want to allow it to happen but we started with taking a look around our area for kindergarten's that had availability to school our daughter. After trawling through a number of them and realising that it would be difficult to find somewhere to not only school our daughter but to take on the responsibility of managing her T1D.
We gave up on the traditional stand alone kinder and went to a privately run day care centre that also had a kinder program. To our surprise when we enquired and were expecting a lot of questions about what T1D is we were met with one of the carers saying that she was T1 also. I could feel my wives heart rate lessen but what she didn't take into account was that as they were a private day care centre the fees would equal $87 a day and the food provided by the centre would not be ok as the training process to get the teachers to understand carbohydrate counting would take a very long time. Much longer than we had. We left thinking that this could be our only option and put her on the waiting list for the following year.
A month or so later, unexpectedly, we received a call from the very first kinder that we applied for informing us that a position had become available. We reconfirmed again before accepting that they were happy with learning how to manage our daughters T1D and they said that they were more than happy to learn all they needed to. A rush of relief and gratefulness washed over us and we assured the director and teacher that we would provide all the training and support that we possibly could to make sure that this was going to be a success. We also ensured that both my wife and I would be on call for any questions no matter when. All we wanted was for the teacher to feel comfortable with knowing all she needed to about the management of our precious little girl.
Knowing that I have a wealth of practical knowledge that I can pass onto the teacher we had to get the fundamentals done first so we organised our daughters diabetes educator to come into the school before the start of term and go through what Type 1 diabetes was, what the processes were for treating highs and lows, what carbohydrates are and what effects that have to blood sugar levels. As this was the first session the fundamentals were enough to try and take on board. The next stage was to start the process of teaching about the specifics about how we manage our daughters T1D.
Luckily just weeks earlier we started on the new Medtronic 640g insulin pump. To say that the difference between the usability on the older Veo model and the 640g is worlds apart is an understatement. Once you know the key words like bolus and basal it is as easy as following the instructions to work the functions on the pump. The home screen gives you all the necessary information to make decisions quickly. This is extremely important when you think that there are another 20 children in the class that still needs the attention of the teacher.
Now combined with the integrated CGM system with the SmartGuard technology this is the piece that allows us to sleep at night and also allows us to know while running and playing or playing play-do or learning your ABC's we can be assured that the pump will stop well before it becomes dangerous. Now we began by telling our daughter that no matter what she was doing if her pump alarmed then she was to stop and tell her teacher so that the appropriate action can be taken. Unfortunately due to kids being kids and not wanting to stop what they are doing she decided to ignore the alarms for the first week or so but with reinforced messaging from both the teacher and ourselves she understood the importance of making herself known in the sea of children as it is her life and health that comes first. Even more importantly with her making sure the teacher know that something was happening she and the teacher are able to talk to the other children in the class about what the pump is and why she has to test her blood and why she had to count her food. These chats and education for the kids in the class now see each and every one of them looking out for her and my wife has now walked in numerous times to one of our daughters friends running up to her saying that her pump was going off and she needed some sugar. Some great awareness starting early on all hoping that a small amount sticks and will make a difference in the future.
So to go back to the initial question is it the school or teacher that matters and I honestly do believe that general knowledge can be taught but it takes a special person to be able to go our of their way to go above and beyond their daily duty so to put it simply in this instance the teacher has made all the difference.
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