Wow, it has been a long time since my last post! We all made it through the holidays and then sickness struck our household and a birthday among a few other things, but I'm finally back with the story of our son's diagnosis of type 1 diabetes.
As I had mentioned before, our son, Trevor, was two months old when our daughter, Madison, was diagnosed in 2004 so he has grown up with watching the family live with this on a daily basis, especially his sister. I want to take a minute to explain what I mean by our "family" living with this disease. We made a decision from the very moment we found out about Madison's diagnosis in 2004 that this was going to be a "family thing". We didn't want her to feel alone, different or like an outcast so we committed to making this a lifestyle we would all have which I believe has made a huge difference in our daughter's responsibility with her disease as she has grown up. Of course we had no way of knowing that this would "literally" become our lifestyle with future diagnoses of diabetes to come, but we still didn't want her to feel like she was "special" for lack of a better word. We all ate the same, measured our portions, didn't eat things that she couldn't have at the time because of her blood sugar being too high, etc. and in hindsight this made things easier for us when I was diagnosed as well as Trevor.
So back to how we found out Trevor was diabetic too. It was the day after Easter 2010 and it had been about six months since my diagnosis and a little over five years of Madison's diagnosis. It was bedtime and Trevor just wouldn't/couldn't go to sleep. He was 5 1/2 years old at that time and he was acting just like a 5 year old might. "I'm thirsty, I'm not tired, I have to go to the bathroom, can you read me another book" etc. so we thought he was just procrastinating and not wanting to go to sleep. We usually check Madison's BG at about 10:00 pm before turning in to bed but we had eaten a pretty early dinner and so we thought we would check her a little bit early, about 9:15 or so. Trevor started saying "I don't feel good can you check my blood sugar too?" We had checked his from time to time because he was curious because his sister got to know what hers was and because we were aware of his test results confirming auto-antibodies so we tried to keep an eye on his BG every so often. We finally decided to just check his BG so then maybe he would go to sleep. My husband came in and told me it was 500! I said that can't be right, have him wash his hands and check it again....it was 495! I said maybe her meter isn't right so use mine and it was 503! (Yes I was in denial, shocked really). We then checked his ketones which were negative (thank God) so we took Madison over to my mom's house and took Trevor to the ER. He was okay, again, thank God, and we were able to take him home after a few hours of IV fluids. We were told he would be okay through the night but to go to our diabetes education center for insulin as soon as he woke up. We checked him through the night and he was fine (high-100's to low-200's) but better than 500.
The next day he said he just felt weird and thought he might be "high" as we would say about Madison or myself at times. From the first day he would check his blood sugar himself and on occasion would give himself a shot. We put Madison on a pump after 8 months so he never saw us give her a shot, just change her injection site, but he was not scared since he had been "living" with this disease since 2 months of age.
He is already a whiz about carbs and he isn't even 6 1/2 yet! Madison is very good with helping him make good choices too. She had said since she was about 6 or 7 that "I hope you get diabetes too and get a pump like me" and then after I was diagnosed she said "What if Trevor gets it too, that would be weird." Of course she didn't mean this in a bad way, I think she just wanted us to be like her and thought that would be cool to have that in common. Right now we are in the process of getting our son on a pump within the next few weeks and he has pointed out that he has had to take shots longer than his sister did....much too smart for his own good...and too cute too!
I hope to hear from anyone else who would like to share their "diabetes story" with me. It seems that that is the first thing people talk about when they first find out someone else has diabetes---How did you know, what did the doctors do, how did you handle it or how did your child handle it, etc.
Until next time, and sooner than the last :)
Anitra
