I am the mother of a 6 year old named Nicholas. Nicholas was diagnosed at the age of 4 with Type 1 diabetes on November 16, 2009. And that was when my life changed.
I noticed that for the past week, Nicholas had been so thirsty and urinating frequently. I thought it was just a ploy to delay his bedtime, but I started to have a sinking suspicion that something was wrong.
My husband took him into see his pediatrician and that was when the devastating news hit. My husband called me as i headed back from a funeral and told me what had happened at the Dr's office. He told me that they tested his blood sugar and sure enough, he was so high, it didn't even register a number. And also, that we were lucky we brought him in or he would have been on the floor the next day. This wasn't happening. I didn't want to go home. I wanted to run away. This wasn't my life- this wasn't supposed to be happening.
When I got home, we had to take him to St. Joseph's Hospital because his Dr. told us that that particular hospital has a really good endocrinology team for where we live. We took him in and they escorted us up to the endocrinology unit. To make a long story short, they started him on insulin and over the next 3 days, the ketones made their way out of his system and he was a different boy.
We noticed that he got his appetite back and was eating breakfast, lunch and dinner without us having to coax him as much. He was in a better mood. But he wasn't happy about having to get his blood checked and the shots and being in the hospital. That was the heartbreaking part.
They discharged us at about 3 - 4 days later (not really sure how many days we were in there due to lack of sleep) and we were on our own. We had to act as our son's pancreas.
We did really well taking care of him and took in an enormous amount of information to be able to keep him under control.
As of today's date, it has been about a year and a half since Nick has been diagnosed. The hurt and heartbreak are still there, but it isn't nearly as bad. Don't get me wrong. I still have my days where I still cry because Nick will ask me "what did I do to deserve getting diabetes?" or "will it ever go away?". I just want to tell him that he can give it to me and he won't have to have it anymore. How I wish that were true.
