Lots of you have asked how we came to the diabetes diagnosis. You ask and I provide. (I am giving like that)
Here is our story:
October:
I notice little things. Hailey drinks a lot, I tell myself. Has she always peed this much? I ask why she is drinking so much and she shrugs and tells me she’s just thirsty. There is a tiny little part of me that whispers Diabetes but it’s not that bad, she doesn’t drink that much. I push it aside. She plays a lot. If I ran around that much I would be thirsty too.
At night, I hear her get up to go to the bathroom several times. Her nightly drink of water becomes 2 and 3. She is just adjusting to the new house and waking herself up, I tell myself as I hear the Diabetes whisper again.
First weeks in November.
Hailey starts getting little tummy aches at night. She wakes up disoriented and uncomfortable. But Hailey has always had a sensitive stomach and she sleepwalks. It must be that.
It becomes a joke around the house how much Hailey drinks and pees. But it’s harmless, I tell myself. She just has a small bladder.
The diabetes whisper is whisper-yelling at me now.
Middle of November.
Hailey is tired. Always tired. She doesn’t go outside to play anymore and if I suggest it, she plays for a few minutes then comes and lies around.
That little whisper isn’t a whisper anymore.
It’s eating at me.
I mention it to Brian. But I follow it with, I am probably just making too much of it.
She is drinking more than ever and she looks dehydrated.
Her tummy hurts.
She says she is too tired to walk to school… around the corner.
Brian looks up symptoms and two things pull up:
Leukemia and diabetes.
I pray for diabetes.
While waiting for my appointment the next day, I monitor Hailey’s drinking. 80 ounces in 3 hours. That’s more than a two liter. She Pees every half hour. Her stomach hurts. Her lips are chapped and her eyes are sunken and red. The whisper is a yelling fact now: something is wrong.
Now I pray its diabetes.
The pediatrician sends us to the lab for blood and urine tests. He puts a rush on the order. They tell us to wait. We wait 3 minutes before we see the lab tech zoom out of the back, telling us nothing other than to follow her.
We can’t keep up with her.
There is only one reason to move so fast.
I know.
The doctor asks me if I know what a normal blood sugar is.
“60?” I say.
“Yes.” he says.
He glances at Hailey and rather than speaks, shows me on paper.
“Do you see Hailey’s blood sugar?”
I read > 800.
I know.
I knew.
I just didn’t want it.
I say, “There is no other reason for that number other than diabetes?”
He says no.
Hailey is crying quietly now. She knows diabetics take shots.
The doctor looks at me, at my little kids and says
“Do you have someone who could watch your other children? I would suggest you go to Primary Children’s emergency room. I would also suggest you don’t wait or…”
He looks at Hailey and stops.
I nod.
“I know,” I say, “the worst could happen.”
“Yes,” he says, “the worst.”
Hailey is crying openly now, asking me why we have to go to another hospital. Why can’t I just give her some medicine? Begging, pleading for no shots.
I tell her Primary’s is the best hospital. That it has a playroom and they give you a stuffed animal.
At Primary’s we learn Hailey’s number has blood sugar even higher and we are thankful we got her there when we did. She is miserable and cries that whole first day. Her veins are too little; she is too dehydrated to get blood drawn. They try over and over and I let them and hold Hailey’s hand. She is poked and injected and fed fluids through IV’s and she just cries and accepts it.
At one point, she glares at me and says “You said this hospital was a nice place. I hate it.”
In that moment I hate it too.
But the next day, she wakes hydrated and filled with insulin and is allowed to eat. They let her eat whatever she wants.
She chooses pancakes and chocolate milk.
They bring her toys from the playroom.
They give her a wooden heart to paint and glitter up.
They let her watch Robin Hood.
She tells me this is the nicest hospital with the nicest nurses.
In that moment I think so too.
