Today's post is to be about our most memorable diabetes day. I suppose that would have to be the day of diagnosis.
It was New Year's Eve and since she had been out of school over the Christmas holidays we had been noticing that she had been drinking a lot. And, of course, going to the bathroom more. She also had wet the bed 2 or 3 times...which she had not done since she was 2 so that really raised a red flag with me. The day before we had taken a short family trip just to go to another town, shop at a few different stores, eat at a different restaurant. My sweet girl ate very little. I had been noticing her lack of appetite and that had been what was keeping me from thinking the drinking could be due to diabetes. Undiagnosed diabetes usually has increased hunger as a symptom as the body is trying to replace the lost glucose. I had written down what she ate that day...3 goldfish, 2 French fries, a cup of mandarin oranges. But she drank whatever we gave her. I was thinking she wasn't hungry because she was drinking so much. But the nagging feeling was there in my mind that I need to check her for diabetes. My husband, in denial, said, "She doesn't have diabetes." So I kinda felt silly in wanting to check. But that night after we got home my husband and I were sitting at the table talking and we had drinks on the table in front of us. My sweet girl came up behind my husband without a word a grabbed his glass of tea and began to guzzle with this look of desperation in her eyes. And that was the point that I couldn't deny it anymore. So the next morning, New Year's Eve, I woke up early and took my sweet girl with me and we went to the pharmacy and bought some Keto-Diastix...the kind that test for glucose and ketones in the urine. We came home and I had her use the bathroom and I tested her urine. Darkest purple Ketones and darkest brown on the glucose. My thoughts: I knew it., I don't believe it.; How can this be?; How am I going to tell her?; I can't cry. I have to act like this is OK for her. I told my husband. I called the pediatrician on call and he told me to take her right away to the children's hospital 2 hours away; the local hospital couldn't help her. We were to have met my husband's family that day for a sort of reunion/brunch so he called his parents and told them. I called my parents to tell them and for them to take care of our other children. We packed bags. We left. I was calm on the exterior, but shaking inside. My sweet girl was nervous and crying a little that she didn't want to go to the hospital. I let her have something to drink on the way and we had to stop a time or two her to use the restroom, but we made it by noon and were triaged within 10 minutes...the pediatrician I had spoken with had called ahead for us. The nurses there were amazing. The nurse who drew her blood got it in one stick and he didn't hesitate a bit...which was amazing since she was a bit dehydrated. She didn't cry when they drew her blood and started her IV and my husband and I were amazed by how brave she was. She was SIX years old. We were in the ER for a couple hours...her blood glucose was 282...not terrible considering this was diagnosis...but she also had been eating almost nothing. A1c was 12.1. I remember we asked the doctor of it could be anything else besides diabetes. "No" was the answer with a smile and a head shake. She was taken to the top (12th) floor which she thought was pretty cool and we got to watch a few fireworks from up there that night. The first shot I gave her was her Lantus that night. Then the next day we got all the carb counting/ high blood sugar bolus information they could fit in. We stayed another night...which was a memorable and funny (now) story for us to recall. She had a low blood sugar during the night..like 2 am and they gave her some juice and it came up to just 80..so she needed to eat something with carbs and protein to last her til breakfast....but they had nothing on the floor. So my husband went searching the vending machines and all he could find were some cheese/peanut butter crackers or the kind that are orange crackers with "cheese" in the middle. He didn't know which ones she would prefer so he texted me "cheese or toasty?". Or so he thought. He didn't get a reply so he bought one and came back up. He asked me why I didn't reply and I said I had never gotten the text. Turns out he had texted his sister with the "cheese or toasty?" at 2:30am:). Anyway, my sweet girl did her best to get down those crackers that she hated, but it took quite a while. This may be boring. If you've made it this far, thanks for reading my rambling!
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