This is how you live with diabetes at age 12: this girl and her mother tells us.Daughter of Marcela Oyarzún and Álvaro Martínez, Julieta has two brothers: Simón (23) and Laura (9), whom he describes as his greatest companions.
It is in sixth basic at Saint George school, and today its biggest objective is to contribute with their experience so that other children in their condition never surrender to this fight."You can always get ahead," he says, and with his mother he delivers a revealing and sincere testimony of life.
Can you live with diabetes?
Marcela: There is a phrase that I always repeat, and when there is a diabetic in the family, the whole family is diabetic, and therefore the relationship between us is very close.Now, although Julieta has a pancreas that does not work, there are treatments and options that make it a fairly living disease.It is a enslave, but it allows you to lead a normal life.
Julieta: And the support network is too important, both the family and the friends who accompany you.For one to walk well, the network has to work at one thousand percent.
M: In addition, diabetes is a disease that has many times degrees of little understanding and enough lack of information.People believe it is as simple as stop eating sugar, but it is not.This is an organ that does not work and will never do it, unless the cure is.However, there are treatments to work.In the case of Juli, for many years, the doses of daily injections.
J: They were an average of one hundred and twenty monthly insulin injections, plus measurements, which are punctures in the fingers to see glycemia levels.
M: Yes, a month ago we put the insulin bomb, which is the latest in technology to treat diabetics.One of the greatest benefits, without a doubt, is no longer to click.
How does this device work?
M: It is connected to the body and has a reservoir, then, one loads with insulin this pump every three days and the program to function according to the needs and characteristics of the patient.
J: It is an intelligent system, it translates into quality of life and, for me, it is far the best that could happen to me.I sleep with the bomb, I walk with it all day and take it out only to enter the water or to compete.
M: Julieta is athlete, competes for her school and, in addition to athletics, she trains surfing and bodyboard.I really find that sport is a great ally of diabetes, and for Julieta it is part of the therapy and its lifestyle.If in the end the limits are set, because a well -treated and disciplined diabetic can make an absolutely normal life.
What are the toughest moments?
M: There are episodes that are not easy and Juliet has had serious decompensations, with clinic days and periods in which it is not good.However, we decided to go forward with the good, with the most or less and with the bad.Of course, we do not look at diabetes as a disease, but as a condition.
J: Our Declaration of Principles is that you can always get ahead, and that will and good mood are the best treatment.
And at the food level, is there a special regime?
M: You can eat everything, but measured.For example, if Julieta wants to take an ice cream, which is rich, tells how many carbohydrates that ice cream has and then sees the dose of insulin that has to be injected.Now she is responsible, but when I was accompanied by birthdays.
J: It was difficult, but I'm already used to it, and if you go to my house possibly in the pantry you find everything light.The important thing is that food is healthy, conscious, controlled and balanced.
M: As a family we opted for healthy and low sugar eating.Julieta debuted at four years with diabetes, and since then we decidedSupport and change food life at the family level.
How complex is to measure every thing that is ingested?
M: At first it seems like a matter of crazy, because being telling all the time is a enslave.However, later you realize that human beings get used to everything.In addition, one knows that there are worse things that have no cure, and on the other hand we appreciate the possibility of opting for the best treatments.For example, today the insulin bomb is not in the boom, that is, there are thousands of children in Chile who do not have the privilege of not continuing to click.
In fact, there is a campaign about it ...
J: Yes. I don't want to be 1% of children in Chile who have the bomb.I want everyone to have it, and I also know that in many countries this treatment is within health plans.
The message of hope
How has it been at school?
J: At the beginning difficult and a little uncomfortable, because they looked at me weird.
M: Of course.Like all around the little girl who was punctured.But now it is no longer a subject and even his companions are a super powerful network, because they understand it, take care of her and love her very much.
Have you never bothered or attacked?
M: Yes. Once he had an episode of bullying at school through an anonymous account in a social network.It is that instead of making a cute comment in some photos of Instragram, some children with malicious eagerness tagged it as "diabetics."
J: And they were cowards over, because they did not give their face.
Julieta, do you feel anger or frustration sometimes?
Really yes, because I look at the other children and I wonder why it touched me.But then I think and conclude that when they touch you difficult things, you will always get the prize to the end.And that keeps me constant and hoping that one day the cure will arrive.
M: I don't know what Julieta will do in his future, but I know that one of his great virtues, and that I most admire, is that he lifts us all.Even when she was bored of the punctures and so much rigor, she was the first to look forward and stood up.
Assume what this disease implies ...
M: Of course, assume that it is not easy, but without being captured by fear.As a mom, I have suffered fed up and I am distressing when I don't see her well.However, one of the greatest achievements that we feel as a family is that we live with diabetes and not for diabetes.We understand that our daughter suffers from this condition, we have certain practices that other families do not have, as a couple maybe we do not go so much, we do not travel if the "Juli" does not travel and we restrict ourselves in some everyday things.Despite this, we work super good so and every day we are more united.In addition, although dependent insulin diabetes is medium aggressive and quite enslaving, you can live perfectly with it.If one decides that this is and struggles for that, it is finally pure will.
Julieta, you recently recorded a video, with what goal?
J: I called him "The message of hope."I wanted to convey my experience and show the confidence I have in myself, so that other children realize that they can also achieve it.They can get ahead.
M: The video is now circulating on social networks.Julieta has just opened a channel on YouTube, in which she will begin to climb content, always from the optics of looking at the glass half full.
