The Challenge of Childhood Diabetes: Family Strategies for Raising a Healthy Child

By Laura Plunkett

Book Overview

This inspiring account of the impact of diabetes on a multigenerational family includes successful strategies for dealing with the emotional, nutritional, and practical issues of caretaking.

When seven-year-old Danny was diagnosed with juvenile diabetes, his mother, Laura Plunkett, a psychotherapist with a private practice in Marblehead, MA, desperately searched for ways to cope with his life-threatening disease. Struggling to manage her anxiety over wildly fluctuating blood sugar numbers, to transform her reluctant family's diet, and to educate friends and teachers, she eventually finds unique ways to help Danny attain excellent blood sugar control and a new and comfortable sense of normal.

To help others weather such shocking new circumstances, Laura and her extended family share their three-year journey from crisis to confidence with humor and warmth. An intimate look at issues of nutrition, exercise, sibling rivalry, medical care, and holistic medicine, The Challenge of Childhood Diabetes is the friend, coach, and consultant that the family of every newly-diagnosed child will turn to on a daily basis. Written with her mother, Linda Weltner, former "Ever So Humble" columnist for The Boston Globe, the book includes a Survival Guide for those seeking support and a new emotional perspective.

The Challenge of Childhood Diabetes is insightful and compassionate, filling the void between doctors' visits with the comforting voice of a loving and experienced caretaker. It's an invaluable resource for extended family, friends, teachers, neighbors, and medical professionals.

Visit www.challengeofdiabetes.com for more information.

"This book is a gem. It will most assuredly help patients, their family members and their friends as they meet the many challenges ahead, including the compelling emotional issues largely ignored in the doctor's office."
-Will Cross, the first person with Type 1 diabetes to reach the summits of the seven highest continental mountain peaks, including Mt. Everest.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0595386253
• ISBN13: 9780595386253
• Release Date: July 2006
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Length: 172 Pages
• Weight: 0.55 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.4" x 6.0" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

Excellent Resource

This is an invaluable resource for anyone who has a child with juvenile diabetes, or know's someone with diabetes. Laura chronicles the first three years after her 7 year old son, Danny, was diagnosed. This book made me laugh and cry. The personal stories are so powerful. Laura's vast amount of research is amazing. Her honesty is refreshing. She has truly mapped out her own path. As a result, Danny's blood sugar levels stay below the suggested guidelines and they have discovered a new sense of "normal". While mainstream medicine has it's place, I don't think it's very good at preventing and treating disease. It was great to read about the alternative holistic health options that Danny has tried to treat his diabetes. Great book!

Health is Important

I am a twelve year old girl with diabetes, after my mother read the book and said that she loved it I read it and it made me realize that eating healthy is extreamly important and getting excersize after meals will help me control my diabetes. The hospital told me to eat whatever i want, just as long as i take the corespoding amount of insulin. Even though they said that was the best way to do it my blood sugars were out of control. After reading this book me and my family have changed our diet so we eat fairly low carb and take walks after dinner together. I feel better since we changed our ways and i cannot recommend this book more. On top of it being educational, it is also a great story.

Saved my Life

I had a really hard time when my 6-year old was diagnosed with diabetes. I spent most of my time wishing we could have our old life back and daydreaming about running away. My husband and I put a lot of energy into raising money for research, but I was too anxious to think about anything but finding a cure. Because the author wrote this book as it was happening, I could really identify with her. I felt the same sense of disbelief at first and when she describes the chaos of those early dinners, it was like being at my own table. After seeing how overwhelmed she was at first, I felt like maybe I could arrive at the same place - a comfortable new normal - that she is in at the end of two years. It wasn't until I read this book that I was able to face the fact that this was the life we had and to decide to actually make something wonderful out of it. It was tremendously reassuring to find out that the author very slowly changed her family's diet and figured out ways to get her husband and her children to co-operate. I have tried some of her strategies and they work. Lily's blood sugar readings have evened off and her first A1c came back almost a point lower. I'm confident that someday, like Danny, she'll be under 7. This book is as engrossing as fiction, and if you are so caught up in the story that you miss the lessons that the experiences have to teach you, there is a survival guide at the end which tells you everything you need to know in just a few pages. This book made me feel "I can do this!" and I truly believe now that the way I respond to Lily's illness can help my family become healthier, more co-operative, and closer than ever. This book is very practical and informative, but what made it really special is that it gave me hope.

Advice to make the child and family healthier, emotionally and physically.

The parent of a child newly diagnosed with diabetes can be overwhelmed, terrified, and desperate. Seeing the medical team infrequently, talking to a busy intern on the phone in moments of panic, and trying to make sense of a myriad of how-to books can cause the parent of the newly diagnosed child to struggle during the day and stay awake at night worrying. This author has been there, hit the depths and emerged to write the tale. Her book offers advice for a new normal with family members closer than ever and the child achieving blood sugar levels below the national average in the range where later complications will be avoided.The book has practical advice to help deal with this difficult situation - about diet and exercise as well as a cooperative spirit of sharing the dailiness of life with those close. Certainly family can pull together. This book should be shared with teachers and the parents of friends of the child so that they can be supportive and understanding. If you the parent of a child with diabetes and are struggling to keep it together, you can learn alot from this book and make your entire family healthier, emotionally and physically.

Great resource!

The book does a great job of offering alternatives and while some may not be right for cetain folks, the open and honest approach to finding a personal path was great and well worth exploring. It stimulates thought and ideas and gives options to consider that aren't usually discussed in as much detail from a parent's perspective. While I don't pretend to know all of the most detailed clincal thinking on the subject, its common sense approach to eating healthier--not just for children with diabetes, but for all children--seems right on target given the epedemic in childhood obesity. I think the other reviewer's comments focusing heavily on the honeymoon period and insulin strategy miss the point--I didn't think that was the core point. And I also don't agree that the book is alarming--rather, it's reassuring because it opens so many doors for support not commonly known or understood. It's a fast read with much to digest! For parents looking to gather more information with a broader perspective on the disease, this is a great choice!