In a now-viral post that can be seen on Reddit, a teenager under the username u/One-Neighborhood-553 told the full (and rather disturbing) story.
She explained she was supposed to look after two children from Friday night until Saturday afternoon, but when she arrived, the mom began to demonstrate how to administer an insulin injection for her five-year-old who had Type 1 diabetes.
But the teenager refused to look after the kids as she has “zero experience caring for diabetic children.”
The American Diabetes Association research shows 1.4 million Americans are diagnosed with diabetes yearly, and about 244,000 children and adolescents have Type 1 diabetes. This means their pancreas doesn’t make enough insulin.
Newsweek reached out to endocrinologist, Dr. Ahmet Ergin, who has a particular interest and passion for diabetes care.
“Taking care of a diabetic child can be challenging for someone with no experience. One key way to start is to understand that the child is still growing and may struggle to cooperate at times,” he told Newsweek.
“This highlights the importance of remembering that the child is insulin-dependent, and missing a dose can have profound consequences; without it, they may go into a diabetic coma within 3-4 hours.
“As such, it’s essential to stick to an appropriate insulin schedule at all times. Those looking after a Type 1 diabetic should also be aware that for every carb consumed by the diabetic child, insulin must be administered too: counting those carbs is an advanced technique, but simply knowing how much short or fast-acting insulin to give can save trouble later on.”
Dr. Ergin emphasizes that keeping the child active is beneficial for both the child and caregiver, given how it helps burn glucose instead of accumulating it in their body when insulin is scarce.
The original poster points out she told the mother she wasn’t “comfortable” with the babysitting gig considering she has never dealt with a diabetic child before.
She wrote: “I also told her that I am squeamish around needles, and she kind of laughed it off and continued trying to teach me.
“I finally had to cut her off and basically told her that unfortunately, I wasn’t comfortable caring for her diabetic child on such short notice, especially since she will be hours away (and probably drunk let’s be honest).
“She started freaking out and begging me to stay, as she didn’t want to miss her trip. It seemed like she was about to cry as I was leaving, which made me feel bad. I texted her when I got home and basically said that in the future I would be willing to try, but I’d like to have some kind of ’trial run’ and we could build up to overnight once I actually knew what I was doing. She read my text but didn’t respond.”
The post has racked up 5,200 upvotes since it was posted on December 12.
The top comment has received more than 11,000 upvotes, it said: “NTA [not the a******]. Since you are neither qualified nor comfortable with performing such a task, you made the right choice.”
Another spoke from experience: “NTA, as a teacher my wife has two kids in her class with diabetes and she and other staff had to have special training, not just for administering insulin but also to understand blood sugar levels, the effect of foods etc. This is not the kind of stuff you learn in a five-minute chat before someone walks out the door and entrusts their kid to you.”
“NTA , As a parent, WTF[what the f***] was this mom thinking?! Let me give this obviously uncomfortable person a five-minute crash course on how to give an injection, what could possibly go wrong?!” wrote another.
Newsweek reached out to u/One-Neighborhood-553 for comment. Newsweek could not verify the details of the case.
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