This Post Is A Bow On My Finger

I have to remind myself not to read other people's blog posts, and their replies to comments I wrote earlier in the day, late at night when my thoughts are probably irrational, making me more sensitive to things that are probably not what they truely are. (sorry if you had to read that a few times to understand it).

I'm so careful to be nonjudgemental and as supportive as a person can possibly be even if my perspective on a situation doesn't jive with the blogger's perspective. I try to put myself in the other person's shoes ALWAYS. I do that in my everyday life as well.

If the person is feeling pain, joy, whatever, I try to say in a comment what I think is the right thing to make them feel good if they're feeling lousy or to encourage them to continue on the path of whatever wonderful journey they're on.

And so a certain comment I left on a certain blog I read regularly I feel was once again rejected with a reply from the blogger as though what I said was unsupportive.

In a way I feel this person is argumentative with whatever I say.

But, even when I read the blog during the day and I check the response to my comments, I feel the same way as I do now. So maybe I'm not experiencing late night irrationality.

Why do I care?

I started blogging in March 2005. I saw a link for The Diabetes Blog on a message board and read an article. And then I clicked on "comments" and then clicked on Martha O'Connor's name and discovered her blog. This post by the way has nothing to do with her. I'm not revealing who I referred to at the beginning.

I commented on her blog, she emailed me and encouraged me to start one of my own. She wanted another parent to share their story.

AmyT of Diabetes Mine was the very first commenter on my blog. Based on what I wrote, she made me feel reassured because she said she too was a slacker mom who would rather write in her blog than do laundry.

And then she made me aware of another parent, Sandra. Sandra commented on my blog, I commented on hers and we're still here today, as well as Martha.

Martha, Sandra, and I were the first three parents that we were all aware of.

When more and more D-bloggers started commenting, a group of us formed.

And then when there were too many bloggers to keep up with the adding to our link section of our blogs (or at least I was the one who just gave up adding the droves of D-bloggers) someone had the brilliant idea to create another blog as a directory.

And so the reason why I care so much about how my comments are taken by the blogger or any OC blogger for that matter, is because these blogs are my lifeline to the support I so desperately needed and still need today.

Brendon was diagnosed when I was pregnant, Jessica had just turned 1 year old, Jeff and I were selling our house in NY and were desperately trying to buy this one so that we could just be settled in order to focus on Brendon's care.

I knew no one up here. I was completely overwhelmed and lonely and wanted to do the best I could to learn how to give Brendon the best care possible. I reached out to online support groups because there were none I could go to in person. I asked the NH branch of JDRF for names of families so that I could reach out to them, but they were so spread out that starting a group of my own didn't stand a chance. None of the online groups panned out. For two years +/- I relied on a message board at Babycenter.com as my sole resource for support (this is the message board where someone posted a link to The Diabetes Blog). It started to deteriorate as a supportive place in my opinion because we were parents who were just trying to get by without our kids having a seizure or numbers in the 400 range, or coming to terms with our kids eating ice cream 3 nights in a row to appease the H and NPH monsters. We didn't have the energy to support each other anymore. We were all getting on each other's nerves because we were tired and cranky. PLUS, tons of moms were coming on asking us if their own kids had diabetes because they were thirsty and peed the bed. I was tired of telling these moms to call a fucking DOCTOR!

So when Martha encouraged me to start my own blog, I jumped at the chance and two years later, here I am among other parents and people who have D.

When I was once shrouded in a cocoon of support that did nothing more than to get me through each day and only causing me to see misery in Brendon's future (what the fuck did us parents know? Our kids were all 3 years old and under), I was exposed to an entire world through the writings about your experiences. The PWD's especially, showed me that Brendon has a chance to live a healthy, fulfilling, albeit incredibly challenging life. BUT, despite the challenge, he has the opporunity to be happy and chase his dreams nonetheless. I also know that there are other parents who love their babies and will do everything in their power to protect them from the damaging effects of diabetes.

With the diverse people who have made the OC what it is today, it's only natural that we all won't or can't get along or relate to each other.

But hell, I've never ever left a comment that wasn't meant to be supportive or helpful.

(Note to whoever reads this: Please don't get paranoid and start rifling through your comment section to see if you are the one who I'm referring to. It's unnecessary).