Guest Blog by Tiffani Knight (Anne McCoy)
Just after our daughter was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes, I remember laying in the hospital bed beside her and praying that there had been a mistake, begging that someone had done a test wrong or misread the results. Everything felt so foreign and scary, and I had no idea how to handle it. As she slept beside me and the machines beeped and the hospital lights hummed, I offered up one of my most desperate and sincerest prayers. I pleaded with my Father in Heaven to ‘please take this from us.’
At the time, I was four months pregnant with our youngest. My pregnancies have always been complicated, landing me in the hospital at least a few times to get IVs or to have early labor stopped. This pregnancy was no different. But I had planned for that difficulty and was ready to accept it as the price to pay for our baby boy's anticipated arrival.
What I hadn’t planned for was for my previously healthy eleven-year-old daughter to become sick suddenly. I hadn’t prepared for the blood work for the days in the hospital. I certainly was not ready to receive the diagnosis of an illness that did not run in my family or my husband's. To hear she had Type 1 Diabetes was about as foreign a concept to us as it would have been to listen to she had suddenly grown a third eye.
When the doctor called with the news, I responded, “Does she just need to stop eating sugar?” To which our wonderfully patient yet honest pediatrician said, “No. This is a life-changing moment for her and your entire family. It will be okay, but this is much more than just cutting out sugar. It is lifelong, and she will need your support.” I didn’t understand then, but the reality of that change would hit me in that hospital bed a million times later as we navigated what this diagnosis meant. And when it did, it was a dark reminder of how challenging life can be.
After a few days in the hospital discovering our new normal, we spent the next several weeks and months adapting. It was during this time that we started to notice the lack of accurate representation of Type 1 diabetes. It saddens me that so little information was out there, and the information usually in the media was wrong. I wanted my daughter to know she was capable and strong. I wanted her to see examples of that strength.
As an author, I was already working on a project that I loved. But it was at this point I realized my main character needed to have Type 1 diabetes. It wouldn’t just make the story better; it could also be an example of hope in a world that sometimes seems very dark. It could show others what living with a chronic illness means and how scary it can feel. But it would also show them the resilience and strength someone with it has. While it is terrifying and accurate, it is something we can do, and we can do it well.
It’s been five years since I started this journey, and it has been amazing to watch our daughter grow and gain resilience. She is solid and full of hope, not despite her diagnosis but sometimes because of it.
Many people ask if I wrote the main character in the book after my daughter. And my answer is no, except for all the good parts. She inspired me to find hope when things felt dark and hopeless. And because of her example, I created a world that begins dark and desperate; that feels how I felt when we received this diagnosis.
Lily, the main character in this world, brings light to us. That light is reflected in my daughter and is seen in Lily. I pray the idea of hope for a better tomorrow is what readers get when they read Starved because that is why I wrote it.
While I pleaded to have this illness taken from our family, it was a loving God who told me it was what our daughter needed. While he knew it would be hard, he loved her enough to let her go through it. I know now that through the experiences she has faced and will yet face because of diabetes, she will gain strength and be a light to others.
Meet us on the BEACON OF LIGHT PODCAST tomorrow at 6:30 pm when we get to share this incredible book.
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