Take a Bow, Boys

I set this blog up to be about Finlay. But it's more than that. It has to be. Although he's the one at the sharp end, who'll have to deal with everything that this disease will throw at him, the whole family are affected.

So I need to introduce you to his big brothers.


It would be easy to exclude them from the blog but they have lived with diabetes as long as we have. At an age when most kids associate hearts with the lovehearts on a greetings card, they can recognise a cardiology diagram from a medical textbook. They have seen their brother's seizures, watched the scars heal from his surgeries. They know how to use a glucometer, where the glucose gels are kept, that when I tell them to get Mummy quickly they need to do it quickly. That they do this without complaint makes me so proud.


As the eldest, Cameron is the one the others look up to. Recently, our city has been struck by a series of earthquakes, one in February killing 181 people. With each big aftershock that shakes the house the younger ones look to him. His coolness and calmness in the face of nature's wrath is incredible in an 8yo. The other two see him looking OK and they stop crying, or get a hug from him to calm them down. At when it comes to Finlay he is just as good. Encouragement to drink his milk, a cuddle to ease the pain of a site injection. Now when Finlay is upset at a site change or at the hospital he cries for his brother.


Ewan is the livewire of the family. Despite Finlay's trials Ewan is the one that's going to cause me to lose my hair as he grows up. He and Finlay are often to be found plotting. With all Finlay's problems we were worried that there would be jealousy between the brothers but not a bit. They are the best of friends. They still argue, they're brothers! But we are so pleased with how they get on.

And this is where the guilt sets in.

They way they have dealt with Finlay and everything associated with him has been incredible. They deserve so much from life. And we constantly fail them. Diabetes and feeding regimes take up the majority of our time. Time we should be devoting to his brothers. We should play with them more, read to them more, teach them more, listen to them more. But too often we run out of time, or if we get the time, are just too damn tired. It's not how it should be, but sadly how it is. All we can do is try to give them as much time as we can. They are good boys and are growing up well. In spite of life's trials they will do well.