ninanevermore

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Today on my drive into work, I was thinking about how my heart skips a beat whenever my son seems to be drinking a lot of water or eating a lot, both of which he tends to do when he is about to go through a growth spurt. I find myself looking at him closely, making sure he's not losing weight, and going so far as to smell his breath.

His breath always smells normal. I've never smelled the scent I am looking for, that of ketones created when the body starts breaking down fat for energy. I remember my mother's description of how my breath smells when I was 8 years old: fruity and sweet, like I'd been drinking cheap wine. It doesn't sound like an unpleasant odor, but I live in fear of it.

Statistically, my son has only about an 8% chance of being diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes. I tell myself that this means he has a 92% chance that he won't be. His chances are pretty elevated compared to the average child in North America, whose probability of this diagnosis is only about 1 in a million. Statistics are funny, though. With no family history of the disease, I was born on the safe side of the equation and lost none the less. With my diagnosis, the odds for my siblings jumped over to the dangerous side of the equation, and not one of them has been diagnosed with the disease.

Once upon a time, I shrugged at the idea that my son might become diabetic. After all, it happened to me and I dealt with it. I figured any offspring of mine could as well, if need be. But that was before he was born. Before I knew him. Before I loved him. Then, my son was nothing more than an abstract idea. I could be logical and pragmatic, and take comfort that the odds were in his favor.

If I don't think about it too much, I can still be logical and pragmatic and take comfort in the 92% odds in his favor. Only when he asks for a second drink of water after he just gulped down a glass do I grow warry. I pick him up, rest my forehead against his own, and ask him to say the magic word.

"Can I pwease have a dwink of water?" he asks.

I smell the words as they come out of his mouth, and they do not smell like cheap wine. I kiss him.

"Of course. Do you want ice cubes in it?"

"Yes, three ice cubes." He holds up three fingers to illustrate his point. He doesn't know he has just undergone a medical test and gotten a clean bill of health.

"Three ice cubes in a glass of water, coming up," I tell him.

I set him back on the ground and let go of him so he stands sturdy on his own two little feet. He's a tough little guy. Whatever life throws at him, I have confidence he will be able deal with it. There are just certain things I hope he never has to.

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