Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about the future. Not just the next appointment or the next blood sugar check—but the long-term picture. The kind of future that includes hope, progress, and maybe one day, a cure for Type 1 Diabetes. That’s where the Islet Act comes in. Right now, islet cell transplantation is classified…
Trina is in town with her husband, and Kay and I got to spend part of the day with her. My family has known Trina for years — long before blogging, before DSP looked the way it does today, and before we ever could have imagined how intertwined our worlds would become. Kay knows her…
Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about growth. Not just the kind you can measure on a chart or celebrate with a neatly labeled milestone. Not just how much clearer Kay’s speech has become, or how her language has exploded with new words—and how she now repeats everything (for better or worse). Yes, that growth…
This weekend marked a very cute milestone for Kay — her very first soccer game! If you’ve ever been around the 3–5 age group, you know that “soccer game” is a very loose term — and honestly, that’s what makes it so perfect. At this age, the focus isn’t on competition or keeping score. It’s…
There’s a version of motherhood that people see—the appointments, the therapies, the diagnoses, the advocacy. And then there’s the invisible part. The part that lives quietly beneath the surface, rarely acknowledged, often misunderstood, and almost never talked about honestly. Being a special needs mom means carrying a mental load that never shuts off. It’s waking…
This month, Kay is starting soccer—and while that sentence might sound simple, it carries so much more meaning than just a new sport on the calendar. Soccer, for us, isn’t really about goals, drills, or even learning the rules. It’s about showing up. It’s about inclusion. It’s about giving Kay the chance to experience something…
There are milestones you expect to feel emotional about as a parent—first steps, first words, first days. And then there are the ones you don’t realize will carry so much weight until you’re standing right in the middle of them. Recently, Kay went on her first field trip with her ABA team to the Discovery…
A Letter to That Mom Dear me, On the day everything changed again— You don’t know it yet, but this is a second diagnosis day. And somehow, that makes it both familiar and completely unbearable. You’ve stood in this place before. You remember the first time a doctor used words that split your life into…
Every three months, we have an endocrinology appointment for Kay. These visits are a chance to look at her blood sugar trends, talk through any patterns we’re seeing, make adjustments if needed, and check her A1C. They’re necessary, but I’d be lying if I said they don’t come with a little anxiety every single time.…
When people hear about our life—appointments, diagnoses, therapies, service dogs—they often assume our days are anything but normal. The truth is, our days are normal. Just not in the way people usually imagine. A normal day starts before the day really begins. Numbers are checked. Routines are followed. There’s a quiet mental checklist running in…
