Written by Mom
When Madison came to me stating that she felt she was going to the bathroom a lot, I brushed it off. But then I started paying a little more attention and it turns out she was. In a 4 hour ride home, we had to stop 3 times for her. During a 2 hour long hike, she went 3-5 times. I remember being in the car and her asking for a drink and listening to her chug the water like she hadn't had anything to drink for days. In the back of my mind I remembered my mom saying that if someone was really thirsty and going to the bathroom a lot, that could be a sign of diabetes. But I honestly didn't think that could be what she had. I always thought it had a strong genetic link and no one on either side of the family had Type 1 Diabetes. So I waited. When she started sleeping a lot, I again blew it off thinking she was tired from all the vacationing. I kept looking for a temperature or sign of any kind of pain. Nothing.
Then I sent her to school. She has since said it was the worst day of school she's ever had. "I was so tired, all I wanted to do was sleep and it was so hard to stay awake". I learned later that she was chosen to be "it" in tag and had gone to her teacher in tears asking to please not be "it". Of course now, I feel terrible.
For 5 years every time we did anything medical we were self pay. I delivered 2 babies self pay, 1 cost about $7000 and the other about $10,000. That came straight out of my pocket. Yes, we had insurance but it was just major medical insurance because overall we were a pretty healthy family. If a kid got sick I would take them in and pay the $50 for the visit and we were done. I actually loved not dealing with an insurance company. But because of this, I tended to wait to see how things played out. I'm not a fan of giving kids antibiotics at the first sign of something and so for the most part I would wait a day or two to see if whatever they had would just go away. And many times it did. Still in this mindset, I waited to see if this would all just pass. She just didn't seem sick!
But once she came home from school that Tuesday, I knew something was wrong. One Dr. said he could see her on Thursday and given her symptoms she should be fine. I called another at 4pm on Tuesday and they could see her Wed at 9am. That sounded better. They told me to look for signs of dehydration and if I saw any to take her to the emergency room. She showed no signs at all of that so I figured I would wait but I was worried sick all night. I didn't even sleep because I was worried about her. Looking back now I wish I would have just taken her in but I hardly even knew what we would say. "Well she was going to the bathroom a lot, but not so much anymore (by then the bathroom trips had reduced for some reason) and she seems tired. Other then that, she is just fine." It sounded a little crazy and paranoid in my mind. But by Wednesday morning I was ready for a fight. If the Dr. said nothing was wrong or that she had "the flu", I was going to insist that it wasn't true. She wasn't doing ok by that point. Luckily, the Dr. had us to the hospital within probably 15 mins of being seen. Turns out she was in diabetic ketoacidosis, a life threatening condition. Her blood sugar was high of course but not crazy high however, her acid levels were way off. She slept off and on most of that first day.
When he came in to tell me that she most likely had diabetes I started to cry. I tried not to but I couldn't help it. Poor Madison had no idea why I was upset. She thought the Dr. was joking that we needed to go to the hospital! Once we got to the hospital and checked in, I just cried throughout the day. And wondered over and over how this happened to us. I understood that it was nothing that we did, that they have no idea how people end up with Type 1 but it had just kind of fallen from the sky out of no where. Of all the things I had worried about for my kids, this one never crossed my mind.
I kept feeling very foolish for crying so much realizing that there are much worse things that could happen but then one of the Dr.'s came in and I mentioned that I was overly emotional. She teared up and stated that every time she gets a kid with a new diagnosis of Type 1 that she gets emotional about it. I'll never forget how much that validated my feelings and helped me realize that it was a big deal and it was ok to be upset.
It was going to be a long road
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