Lauren was diagnosed with T1D on December 10, 2012. We don’t know when the autoimmune process actually began. In October, she came home from daycare a couple of times in her change of clothes. This was not extremely common or uncommon at that time. There were a few occasions in November when Lauren would wake up with her diaper totally wet and PJs wet too. I thought as she was growing, her bladder was getting bigger and it was a side effect of being a toddler.
Lauren has always had a healthy appetite. She’s never been a picky eater and never one to turn down most foods. At Thanksgiving, we went to Austin to visit family and I remember commenting to my mom, after seeing Lauren eat two bowls of oatmeal, a banana, milk, etc…, about how she seems to eat so much, but stays so slim.
Cut to the week of December 3rd. I picked her up from daycare on Monday and she was in her change of clothes. Same thing Tuesday. They said she was soaking her sheets during nap time. She never did this at home, so I thought it was strange. On Wednesday, nothing unusual happened. On Thursday, she was again in her change of clothes. I called my mom on the phone and told her about it. I knew that Lauren ate her lunch, then drank her milk right before nap time. I decided that I would ask them not to give her milk directly before nap time. Friday, Rob dropped Lauren off and spoke with the teachers about the liquid situation before nap time. They told him that Lauren was insistent about drinking a bunch of water throughout the day. Friday afternoon, she was again in her change of clothes.
On Saturday, we went to a friend’s place for a small get together with snacks. Lauren ate her first donut hole. We went to the Neiman Marcus Christmas display downtown. We went home and put Lauren down for her nap. She woke up shortly into her nap crying and asking for water. I knew something wasn’t right. I was scared to look on the internet. Rob did and the only thing that came up for symptoms of thirst and urination was Type 1 Diabetes. We didn’t know anything about it. No one on either side of our families had ever had it. I was in denial, but only for a short period of time. An hour or two later, I had the worst feeling in the pit of my stomach. Yes, the internet had stories of people saying their toddler just got addicted to drinking water, but I knew it wasn’t that. And I was scared. I kept a list of everything Lauren ate and drank, and how often she went to the bathroom over the next day and a half.
Monday, I called and got a sick visit appointment at our pediatrician’s office. It was not until 11am, so we decided to go see the trains at Northpark in the morning. Lauren went through several diapers. At 11, we went and explained everything to the doctor. I told her I hoped she would check everything out and tell me I was crazy. They said Lauren looked great, hadn’t lost any weight, etc…The doctor told me that if it was just a little high we would have to come back for a fasting test, but if it was something like 300, then we would know. They sent us to the in-office lab where they drew Lauren’s blood from her arm. We waited in the lab waiting room for what seemed like forever. The doctor came back and said they wanted to do a finger prick because the blood from the arm was coming back high. I knew it was diabetes. They pricked her finger and I saw on the glucometer that it read 579. They took us back to a room and we waited for the doctor. Lauren was running around and happy and we were trying not to cry. I didn’t know exactly what it meant, but I knew it was not what we wanted for her. The doctor came in and told us that they were expecting us at Children’s Medical Center and we needed to go there directly.
We arrived, went through the ER admissions, all the while, the nurses and doctors telling us it must be some kind of mistake because she looked so healthy. But they took some more blood and told us the endocrinologist would be coming to see us. I didn’t even know what an endocrinologist was exactly – I just knew he/she would be the one to tell us the news. Lauren got an IV with insulin and had her first ever juice box in the ER. I wondered to myself how a child who had never even had juice could get diabetes. It wasn’t fair. We spent the next two and a half days at the Children’s hospital, learning what T1D is, how to do finger pricks, how to give shots, and how to count carbs. One of Lauren’s daycare teachers came to visit her and brought her a stuffed animal, a stranger gave me a hug as I was crying by the ice machine. I think Rob and I slept for a couple of hours the entire time we were there. It was overwhelming.
Here we are at discharge with Bunny and our new survival skills:
That is Lauren’s endocrinologist in the background.