Oprah

I am not an Oprah fan, I don't agree with most of her points of view concerning faith and God, nor do I make it a point to watch her show.  I do, however, think that sometimes she has some really good topics on her show that are very informative to us as women and mothers, but also some good health information.

A couple of weeks ago, I saw a preview for a show about a family with a schizophrenic child.  I was going to be sure to watch this one!!  I think a lot of times we think, "Oh, whoa is me...." and we think we have big problems.  This particular show really put it in perspective for me.

Janny is a pretty little girl, with beautiful curly blond hair, around 8 or 9 years old, (Maddie's age).  She  started showing signs of hallucinations at around 6 months of age.  As she got older, she got worse, and her condition progressed into schizophrenia, which is very rare in children.  Now she has what seems like imaginary friends, but is really other personalities that talk to her and tell her to do bad things, and she stays angry most of the time, if not constantly violent.  At the age of 5, Janny was asking her parents things like how to break your neck, or what it the easiest way to die.    

But here is where I realized that maybe having a diabetic child isn't as bad as having a child with another disability, like say, a mental disability such as this one: 

Janny's mom is a stay at home mom, and her dad is an English professor at a local college.  They also have a son that is under 2 years old.  The family lives in an apartment complex.  Janny has one apartment, and the baby brother has another apartment.  They can't live in the same house, or even be around each other, for fear that Janny will kill her brother.  Janny can't have sharp objects or any cleaning solutions in her apartment, for fear of hurting herself.  One parent sleeps with the baby brother in his apartment one night, while the other monitors Janny as she sleeps, then they take turns the next night.  All day long, Janny is monitored, while someone else stays with the brother.  The only friend she has is a little girl she met in the mental hospital who suffers from paranoid schizophrenia.  The two girls seem to understand each other, and that is what they have in common. 

This story just made me sad, and although I loath it, and diabetes does affect Maddie emotionally and sometimes behaviorally, I sometimes don't realize how lucky I am to have a child with diabetes.