The Road to Diabetes

Most of you have heard by now that Sophia was diagnosed yesterday with Juvenile or Type 1 Diabetes. I hope to get the facts out in this post.

As I put the pieces together in my mind, this has been developing for a long time. Sophia has always been what we called "strong willed," but the mood swings we'd gotten in the last couple of years were so strong. Her sweet moods were so amazingly sweet, and then all of a sudden she would snap and would be screaming, or throwing things, hitting, running away from me, etc. I say all of this, because this was a big part of what tipped us off yesterday.

The last few weeks she has been more tired and complaining of that, even often asking for a little coffee in her milk to help wake up. She's struggled to have energy for much at all, and mostly begs to watch tv all day. I was out running to the doctor for Jossie on Friday, and then out running errands with Sophie on Saturday. Everywhere we went those two days Sophie was begging to use the bathroom and had plenty when she went. I of course just thought it was a behavior thing, and she was just cranky and trying to get under my skin by using the bathroom everywhere (good reasoning, huh? Feeling proud of myself there). On Saturday, I Googled frequent urination in children, and had "urinary tract infection" and "diabetes" come up. I thought, well she's not complaining of pain, so it can't be UTI, but it can't be diabetes either, because our nephew just got diagnosed with that and I'm just being paranoid...reading into the symptoms too much.

So, I dismissed it for the rest of the weekend. Took her to our church dinner on Sunday, where I looked like quite the mother of the year snapping at her, as she was screaming at me everything she wanted on her plate. I mention it, because it was part of what pushed us to thinking something is seriously up. I reasoned it to be that she just doesn't get enough sleep and we need to move her bedtime up by 1/2 hour.

Monday morning came, and she was cranky from the start. She had a major blow-up right before Joe left for work. He said, "you need to take her to the doctor." I told him that I needed to just test her with my glucometer first (I had gestational diabetes with Norah and had a glucometer). So, right after he left for work, I found my glucometer and forced her to be tested (she was not happy with me). It said "Warning! High Glucose Level! Over 600" I did my best not to panic, and assumed that it was just an old strip or I had done something wrong. I immediately re-tested her and it said the same thing. My heart sank. I knew what it meant immediately. I knew that there was no other explanation, but I didn't know how bad it was going to get.

I, through trembling hands, immediately called the doctor's office to find out if we should come there or the emergency room. Called Joe, to tell him to be ready to leave. Quickly ran around the house, desperately trying to keep the nice mommy face on and pretend everything was OK. Though inside, I thought I was about to scream. As we were gathering snacks and drink-cups, and throwing clothes on everyone, I had to tell Sophie that she probably had diabetes like Forest, her cousin. She started crying and said, "but I asked Jesus that nobody else in our family would get sick!" Ugh! How do you even go there? But that's Sophia...she has such pure faith, yet she has this uncanny ability to work out her theology in the midst of whatever is happening in life. We hugged and cried for a minute and prayed for a cure and that we would all be brave and peaceful as the day went on. We had that prayer answered for sure.

I'll try to shorten it from here. We got to the hospital and they did blood-work and confirmed it was diabetes, but that thankfully, we had caught it much earlier than most, and would not be requiring hospitalization. So, they sent us to the pediatric endocrinologist, and Joe's parents took Jossie and Norah home. Within a couple of hours time, I learned to administer her first shot of insulin, and within a couple of hours of that, she began to feel a little better. Of course, I was heartsick with it all...watching her being pinned down and screaming while getting her blood work, the fact that our lives are going to forever change, and so many other aspects.

It's still been crazy today. She's just on a long-acting insulin shot until tomorrow, when we'll start our education and her regular mealtime shots. So, today she started off in the normal range (164), and by lunchtime was up to 512 (which I suspected when she started randomly screaming at me...I'm learning these cues). Then she went to over 600 again. ugh! Joe had to come home to wrestle her down so we could give her another long-acting shot. We checked blood-sugar about 6 times today, and she's learning to deal with that OK. I pricked my own fingers a couple of times today to show her it wasn't a big deal (but I have to tell you, it really stung more than I had remembered, and I felt even sorrier for her).

Our families and friends have been so supportive in these last two days. We're so thankful. Thanks for the calls and the emails, and especially for the prayers. Pray for us in the next few weeks as we adjust and help her little body adjust. The one positive, is that when her blood sugar has been down in the normal range, she's so sweet and on top of her behavior, and it's quite an exciting thought to think she'll have a lot more times of feeling good than she has clearly had in the last few months or possibly years.

Well, I have so much more I could say about it all, but can barely keep my eyes open.

Hopefully the funny stories will return again soon! :-)