True Friends

I was a little worried when C went back to school after getting her pump. While she had no visible signs of being a diabetic before the pump, it was obvious that she was a little different from the other students. She left for lunch before the other kids so she could go to the nurse for her blood sugar check and her insulin, and she was usually waiting for the rest of the class in the cafeteria when they got there. Additionally, she has no-questions-asked access to the restroom and the nurse. With the addition of the pump to her management plan, it is now physically obvious that she is different. For example, when it's on her arm, and she's in short sleeves, you cannot miss this thing.

I wasn't worried that the nurse would mess it up, or that it would fall off while she was playing. I know that 5-year-old kids can be super jealous when someone else gets special treatment, so I was worried that the other kids would say something about it looking stupid or call her names just to try to knock her down a peg. She is so sensitive, and gets her feelings hurt so easily, that I knew it would devastate her if one of the other kids made her feel self-conscious about having a pump on. We worked so hard to get her to agree to do this, and I was worried she would want to quit because of some insensitive comment.

So when C came home and told me that all of the kids in her class thought her pump was "neat" and "cool," I almost cried. Maybe it's because a friend made a pink and black zebra striped cover for the pump out of duct tape. Maybe it's because C is really and truly interested in being every one's friend. Or maybe I just underestimated these kids and the awesome way their parents raised them. Whatever it was, none of them has said anything negative to C about her pump or her diabetes.

I've heard other parents of diabetic children talk about how their kids are teased about being different. One kid even raised her hand and asked, in front of the entire class, if she could move because she didn't want to sit next to the "sick kid" all the time. So it makes me happy that C is having such an easy time with all of this right now. I know that she may not always; there will eventually be some kid who says something really stupid to her out of jealousy and spite, but her classmates have proved to me that there will also be kids on her side. Kids who will possibly tell the mean kid where to shove it. In other words, true friends. I didn't think five-year-olds were capable of being true friends, but I will happily say that, in this case, I had nothing to worry about.