This week is National Diabetes Awareness Week and mum Gemma Robinson is determined to shout the message from the rooftops.
Diabetes is an issue very close to her heart. She lives with it every minute of every day, although she’s not the one that suffers from it.
Her four-year-old daughter Faith was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes when she was just two.
Unlike type 2 diabetes, which is often linked to lifestyle and more common in overweight people, type 1 is thought to be caused by a combination of genetic predisposition and an environmental trigger.
Gemma says there is no history of diabetes in her family or that of Faith’s dad Paul, but she believes a chest infection a few weeks before her diagnosis may have been the trigger which caused Faith’s diabetes.
She said: “She had been going to the toilet a little bit more often than usual and had a bit of a temperature.
“I couldn’t put my finger on it, I thought she might have a urinary tract infection so I took a urine sample to the doctor, expecting to be told she had a virus, but he tested it and said she had to have a finger prick test.
“They said her blood glucose was 15. I didn’t have a clue what they meant but we had to go straight to hospital, where it was confirmed she had diabetes.”
At the time, Gemma and Paul also had a ten-week-old son, but Faith’s diagnosis meant they had to spend a week in hospital learning how to manage the condition.
Now Gemma,of Elizabeth Crescent, West Pinchbeck, has to control everything which Faith eats and monitor her blood glucose level.
Faith is lucky that for the past year or so she has been fitted with a pump, which delivers insulin into her blood stream via a canular. For ten months before it was issued, Gemma had to inject her daughter with insulin.
She said: “She copes with a lot better than I do, but then she doesn’t understand the complications that can arise.
“At the moment I do everything for her so she doesn’t have to worry, but it’s always in the back of my mind and I worry all the time.”
Last October, Gemma organised a ball to raise money for – and more importantly awareness of – type 1 diabetes.
She wants parents to recognise the symptoms as the disease can occur suddenly in anyone.
And knowing the symptoms and seeking medical help quickly can be the difference between life and death.
She said: “Raising money is fantastic, but awareness is more important.
“I had no idea about the symptoms before Faith was diagnosed.
“We were lucky that she was diagnosed before she became ill, but I have heard of other families where their children have become really poorly before they have been diagnosed.
“That delay can be dangerous, or even deadly.”