Brittany was diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes or Insulin Dependent Diabetes Mellitus (or IDDM) on Monday, Memorial Day, May 28, 2001. It was almost exactly 3 months before her 8th birthday. She was very sick by the time we got her to the hospital. I'd had no idea what was wrong with her. I very nearly had to carry her into the ER that morning.
In the weeks, maybe months before that day I kept thinking she needed more protein, she needed more iron, she needed more vitamins. I knew she needed something, but had no idea what. My mom mentioned that her breath smelled "fruity" and asked if I thought it was Diabetes. I didn't know anything about Diabetes and I brushed off my mom's comment. (I've mentioned in other stories that I do come from a long line of worriers.) I did also notice that she was getting up several times a night to go to the bathroom. Later, the babysitter mentioned that she'd been going to the bathroom quite a bit more frequently during the day, but she thought that she was just drinking more, which is exactly what I thought about the night-time trips to the bathroom. She was nearly 8 and had been giving herself baths for some time. It was also just starting to warm up and she was just starting to wear short-sleeved shirts. Because of these two things I did not notice that she was losing weight, rather quickly. When they weighed her at the hospital I was shocked, I can't remember the exact numbers but she'd lost around 20 lbs! That's a lot if you only weigh 55-60 to begin with.
She was in serious Diabetic KetoAcidosis (or DKA), her blood sugar was in the 500's and she had blood in her urine. It took them two days to get her sugar down enough so that she could eat. She did not like that doctor at all. Her endocrinologist - Dr. James Horner, came in to see us Monday evening. He explained Diabetes, what it is, the theories around how the kids get it, how they treat it, etc. The next day one of the Certified Diabetes Educators (or CDE), Marilyn, came to see us and later the Dietician, Debbie, came to see us too. They both stopped in just about everyday to make sure we were absorbing the information and that we'd be able to handle everything when we went home. I think Dr. Horner stopped in everyday too. On Friday morning he gave us a "test" (luckily we'd been forewarned about this) to make sure we knew what we needed to know to care for her properly. Even after that test, I still wanted to grab the doctor or one of the nurses and ask them if they were sure that we'd be ok, I felt like I was taking home a newborn baby as a first time mom, I didn't have any clue how we were going to do this.
As nervous as I was, I was armed with plenty of information and about 4 or 5 different phone numbers so that I could reach the doctor anywhere at any time! I was very impressed with that. And one of my instructions was to call him every morning with the previous days blood glucose (or BG) readings so that he could fine tune the insulin doses. She started out on two shots of Humulin (a long-acting insulin) per day and 3 to 4 shots of Humalog (a short-acting insulin) per day, the Humulin shots were mixed with the Humalog, so there was only one shot at a time, just several times a day. The biggest complaint with Humulin is that it peaks, and you'd better be sitting down to eat when it is going to peak or you are on the floor with a severe low blood sugar. Low blood sugars don't cause any long term damage, but can be deadly if not treated quickly and properly. High blood sugars cause mostly long term damage, and can cause some immediate problems. After dealing with all of this for a few months and getting back to "regular" life (whatever that is), I realized that I had a hard time remembering what it was like before she was diagnosed and when I did it was very painful, it's even harder to remember now that it's been a few years.
We are lucky enough to live in Northwestern Ohio, which has Diabetes Youth Services, I don't know if there are other's like it around the country, I do know that we owe them a lot! They provide day-camps for kids from 6 to 9 and then an away camp for 10 to 15, the 16 - 18 year olds are sometimes asked to be counselors for either camp. These camps are so wonderful! They teach the kids to be more independent and how to take charge of their diabetes.
In August of 2002, Brittany got her first insulin pump, it was a MiniMed Paradigm 511. Wow, what a difference that made in our lives! She was able to eat again, what she wanted to and not what she had to. And we were able to eat whenever we wanted to! She finally started to remember what it really felt like just to be hungry because she was hungry and not because she was having a low blood sugar. That was a major event for us!
Updates to come:
Life since...
Hashimoto's Thyroiditis...
Trying to get the CGMS...
Hormones, oh boy!!
Last updated: 8/25/2008