Forty Days of Diabetes - Day 8

Forty Days of Diabetes - Day 8 - Where it all began...

She looks like any other preteen girl. Straddling that space between daddy’s-little-girl and “can I borrow the car please”? Silly, sweet, and sassy one minute…mooning over boy-bands the next.

Rocking her Omnipod!!

Look a little closer. You’ll see pods adhered to her skin, one infuses insulin and the other reads the sugar in her interstitial fluid every 5 minutes.  Both are essential to keep her healthy and alive. You’ll see marks on her belly, arms, and back from multiple injections and pump site changes. You’ll see spots on her fingertips from the thousands of times she’s checked her blood sugar over the last three years. Watch her as she plans for every piece of food she puts in her mouth. Every meal and snack requires carb counts, google searches, and a kitchen scale. She never goes anywhere without her gear. A blood sugar meter, fast acting sugar to counteract hypoglycemia, extra pump sites, insulin, and the dreaded Glucagon. Glucagon is a life-saving injectable to be used only in extreme emergency when a diabetic is so low they are seizing or unable to take fast acting sugar by mouth to reverse a severe low. Look at her again and all you see is a sweet little girl. She takes it all in stride and doesn’t let it slow her down or stop her for one second.

Days before diagnosis

Caitlin was diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes on October 5, 2012 at age 9. It’s hard for me to put my finger on when I think it all started. She’d been a little moody, tired, complaining of headaches and stomach pains here and there. By the end of September she didn’t want to go to dance class anymore and spent most of her time laying on the couch. I remember the night before diagnosis vividly. I was following her up the stairs to bed and she looked like she was struggling to take every step. I was getting exasperated with her slowness and asked her what her problem was. She answered in such a pathetic voice that it broke my heart. “I don’t know.”

When her school nurse called me at work the next day I was not surprised. I was ready for the words when the pediatrician said them but it was still so shocking. She said “You don’t need to go by ambulance but you need to go home and pack enough things for a few days and report to the emergency room. We’ll let them know you’re coming.”

We were whisked into the ER where she was poked and prodded for what seemed like forever. It was nothing short of miraculous to watch her come back to life as the insulin infusion took over for her pancreas. We soon learned that she was in full blown DKA (diabetic ketoacidosis) upon admittance, a life threatening condition. Her blood sugar was almost 1,000 and we could have lost her had we waited even one more day.

She was admitted to the pediatric intensive care unit where the next three days were spent learning all about how to care for a child with Type 1 Diabetes. Taking her home was scarier than a trip home with your first newborn baby. I didn't know how we could possibly handle caring for her on our own.  But we did it.  We took her home and applauded every milestone  The first time she checked her own blood sugar, her first injection, first trip to diabetes camp, first pump site change. She's come so far, we've all come so far.  

We had no choice because And Then There Was D......