It has almost been a year since Sugar Baby was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes. The date was February 19th, the same day (14 years earlier) that Daddy Duck proposed to me.
Sugar Baby and all the other ducklings had gotten sick around Christmas time, but Sugar Baby never seemed to fully recover. I took her in to the pediatrician in January because she seemed so weak & not herself. He thought that it might have been a lingering sinus infection, so he prescribed an antibiotic. Sugar Baby still didn't perk up and began losing weight. I thought that perhaps she was just growing taller and taking after Daddy Duck.
Then, she started having to pee very often. Just a few days before I took her back to the pediatrician, she had to go three times while we were in one store (and we weren't there that long). She also became very thirsty. She became frantic for drinks, especially sweet ones. We rarely drank koolaid, but she kept begging me to get some.
Way, way in the back of my mind, I knew these were diabetes symptoms. But it just couldn't be - no one in my family that I knew of had type 1. On Monday, February 18th, I remember telling Daddy Duck that I had made an appointment with the pediatrician for Sugar Baby for the next day. I told him I thought - and even while saying that to him I felt like I was being a hypochondriacal (is that a word?) mother- that she had symptoms of diabetes. But, I told him, it's probably like a urinary tract infection or something.
That next Tuesday morning, Sugar Baby and Bootsie had their sewing class. From there, we ate lunch, stopped at Krispy Kreme(!) and then dropped the other kids off at a friend's house while I took Sugar Baby to the pediatrician.
I told our pediatrician Sugar Baby's symptoms. She listened & seemed very somber. She sent us to the bathroom for a urine sample. We gave it to the nurse and went back to the examining room. The nurse came in & told the ped. the results. Sugar Baby's urine sugar was 2,000.
The pediatrician said, "I'm so sorry. It looks like Sugar Baby has diabetes."
Gulp.
"But how do you know??" I asked. She told me that you weren't supposed to have any sugar in your urine. She also said the good news was that there were no ketones present. Ketones?
She left the room to get some information and phone numbers. I fought back tears. Sugar Baby was very afraid and kept saying, "but there's nothing wrong with me." I told her she would be okay and we would get through this.
She gave us instructions to take Sugar Baby to a local hospital where they have good pediatric endocrinologistst. There, they would begin the education.
The next 24 hours were a whirlwind. Sugar Baby's blood glucose in the ER was so high it wouldn't register on their handheld glucometers. A blood test revealed that it was 740. A miracle that she hadn't gotten ketones or dangerously ill.
We spent hours and hours in the ER before they admitted her to a room. The entire time, Ron Hamilton's song "Rejoice in the Lord, He Makes no Mistakes" cycled over and over in my mind.
Meanwhile, my ravenous Sugar Baby was even hungrier and I had no idea what she could eat. I was given the impression that she couldn't eat anything - that it was all bad!
That night, Daddy Duck went home to care for the other ducklings, and by midnight, Sugar Baby was finally settled in a room. She couldn't fall asleep. She laid there & cried. Oh, how my heart breaks now to remember it! I climbed in the bed with her and rubbed her back until she went to sleep.
I spent the rest of the night in the chair next to her bed, devouring any information I could get my hands on. My head was spinning!
All of our heads were spinning for the next several weeks!
Our emotions have taken such a roller coaster ride through this experience. I still hate it so much. Diabetes really stinks. I sooooo wish my Sugar Baby did not have to deal with this.
Everyday is basically the same:
- wake up
- test blood sugar (this is the finger pricking part)
- receive two shots before breakfast (the amounts of the insulin in the shots depends on what the blood sugar is and how many carbohydrates she will be eating)
- test blood sugar before lunch (another prick)
- receive a shot to cover lunch carbs
- test blood sugar
- receive a shot to cover dinner carbs
- test blood sugar again before bed
- have a snack so that blood sugar doesn't drop while sleeping
everyday. everyday. everyday. there is no vacation or time off from it. it is every day.
Meanwhile, Sugar Baby handles it like a champ. She is truly amazing! I thank God for helping her be so strong to deal with this disease.
The pump is really cool. It holds a cartridge of insulin, and there is a tiny tube that connects to Sugar Baby's skin. We change the tube (moving it around to different sites on her body) every three days. Now, instead of getting shots every morning, and for every meal, we just test her blood sugar (like before) and tell the pump how many carbs she'll be eating. The pump calculates how much insulin she will need for that meal, we confirm, and then it sends it to her through the tube.
The pump can give insulin in much tinier increments than a syringe, so that helps with getting just the right amount and keeping her blood sugar under better control.
