Helen Wills
Blogger at Actually Mummy and Podcaster at Teenage Kicks
Maddie Wills
16 year old living with type 1 diabetes
When nine-year-old Maddie Wills was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes, she and her mother, Helen, had a lot to process. Thankfully, both received support from a diabetes specialist nurse.
Helen Wills wasn’t taking any chances. When she suspected that her nine year old daughter, Maddie, might have type 1 diabetes, they both turned up at their GP’s surgery with a urine sample, even before he’d asked for one.
“I think most mothers have a sixth sense about these things,” says Helen. “Maddie had classic symptoms. She was drinking a lot of water — we couldn’t go anywhere for more than an hour without needing to find a toilet — and she’d lost weight.”
At first, the GP assumed Maddie had a bladder infection. But Helen still remembers the look on his face when he tested the urine with a dipstick.
“He said: ‘There is quite a lot of sugar in it.’ I didn’t 100% know what that meant and asked: ‘Does that mean Maddie is diabetic?’ He said: ‘There isn’t really any other explanation.’
That was seven years ago. Since then, Maddie, Helen and the rest of the Wills family have had a lot to process emotionally.
“At that time, I don’t think it dawned on me just how life-changing type 1 diabetes would be,” admits Helen. “Because — and many people don’t realise this — it’s a life-long and potentially life-threatening condition.”
Coming to terms with the diagnosis
After seeing the GP, Maddie spent a couple of nights in hospital where she received support from Paediatric Diabetes Specialist Nurse, Catriona Hurley.
Naturally, as a nine year old, Maddie didn’t fully comprehend what was happening to her.
“I only realised what a huge deal it was when I started having insulin injections,” she says. “I thought people only have injections for serious reasons — and now here I was in hospital having to inject myself all the time.”
Maddie was incredibly brave to begin with, says Helen. “I think a lot of kids are. But as the reality set in she started to feel sad and resentful. That was a very difficult period, and we spent a lot of time just me and her talking about things and coming to terms with it.”
Meanwhile Helen had to come to terms with Maddie’s condition herself. Looking for reassurance from doctors in the early stages, she says “it’s taken me several years to accept that there’s no such thing as ‘under control’.”
Because — and many people don’t realise this — it’s a life-long and potentially life-threatening condition.
Getting advice and support from a specialist nurse
That’s why having close contact with Catriona was so crucial, says Helen, who has written about her experiences on her lifestyle blog, Actually Mummy.
“For me, Catriona was a source of reassurance. I remember a few days after we came home calling her on her mobile at the weekend to tell her Maddie had eaten Coco Pops for breakfast and I was worried because they’re so sugary. I wanted someone on the end of the phone to tell me: ‘It’s OK. You’re doing all the right things.’”
That included monitoring Maddie’s blood sugar through the night with finger prick tests, which was physically exhausting and emotionally draining.
Maddie — who has just turned 16 — now has a sensor on the back of her upper arm that records her glucose levels consistently, plus an insulin pump, which has made life easier.
Maddie’s advice for newly diagnosed patients is to take things as they come and think about managing your condition on a week by week basis. Also, realise you’ll have to deal with people’s misconceptions.
“A big one is when someone sees me eating a cake and says: ‘Should you be eating that?’,” she smiles. “Or they say: ‘So you can’t eat sweets anymore?’ But it doesn’t mean that. I can do all the things I did before. I just have to be sensible and manage things.”
