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Living With Type 1 Diabetes Essay

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Living with Type 1 Diabetes
Living with a chronic condition not only effects the individual, but it effects the entire family. An adolescent living with a chronic health condition not only depends on their family for support, but also on support from their friends, classmates, and healthcare team (Rostami, Parsa-Yekta, Najafi Ghezeljeh, & Vanaki, 2014). Supporting an individual with a chronic disease leaves an emotional impact and can be financially straining as well. Families living with a sick child must find strategies to cope. Whether the coping strategies utilized are positive or negative, they leave a lasting effect on the entire family, as well as the child living with the condition (Woodson, Thakkar, Burbage, Kichler, & Nabors, 2015). Involvement of the parents in this situation is vital to the child’s future success in managing their illness (Landers, Friedrich, Jawad, & Miller, 2016). This paper will explore one family’s story of living with, and coping with, a child who has recently been diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes (T1D).
Type 1 Diabetes effects millions of people around the world (Michel & Montada-Atin, 2014). Most often, a person is diagnosed before their 30th birthday, with diagnosis commonly being between 11 and 13 years of age (Michel & Montada-Atin, 2014). Diabetes is a disease of the pancreas. More specifically, the breakdown of β cells in the pancreas causes the production of insulin to cease (Michel & Montada-Atin, 2014). Once the body is unable to

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