Deja Vu Days
I'm finding myself stuck in last year. I keep comparing and not finding too much contrast between Fall 2013 and Fall 2014. I've not written much about our oldest daughter and unfortunately, this month, these days to be exact, last year were solely devoted to her and her new diagnosis. I hate that I want to tell you about her and her diabetes first. There should be some preface to this, some prologue that shows her as this amazing girl first, without the label of T1D, and yet, I can't tell you about where our lives are right now, and how far we've come, without the shadow of diabetes looming over us.
I will tell you that we make a lot of allowances in our household for kid behavior, attributing the nuances of naughtiness to holidays, Daylight savings time change, or the weather...last year this was the running mantra. The end of October hit us hard, me signing up to be a Daisy Girl Scout leader to twelve kindergarteners the day Charlotte got 'sick' at school. A low grade temp kept her home for a day when she slept in, ate, relaxed and played like her sisters.
It was the start of a spiral though we didn't know it. The momentum built and we felt the pull of it, changing sheets soaked in the night and washing wet pajamas. The draw was not dramatic and though it seems gradual looking back, it was a turning point for us in a short time. At the end of a swimming lesson, teeth chattering through blue lips, when I expect a exclamation of fatigue or even hunger she said," I'm sooo thirsty." I remember my response in that brick-lined locker room at the local high school, "What are you, diabetic?" I joked and though it didn't echo next to those bleachers and beach-towel clad little girls, it reverberated in my head. Through the next few days I watched her, calculated her behavior and chalked it up to an hour of different sleep, the moving of snack and meal time, drinking too much before bed, an early rising for school, heck even school itself as all-day kindergarten was a tiring thought. But maybe I really knew, let all those tick-marks add up to it over those few days.
So often we have been asked,"How did you know?" when we tell someone she's newly diagnosed. The moment was silly really, when that joke echoed back and I let the worry niggle in a little deeper. She raced her sister to a light switch, and when the 3 year old beat her out, my oldest and most evenly-tempered 5 year old threw herself on the floor in a full on fit of a tantrum. Did I 'know' then? Did I want to know? That night at dinner I helped her get drink after drink, filling her up about 30 ounces in 90minutes. Maybe it was then I knew. Or the next morning when I woke her for school, cajoled her from her soaked sheets and helped her get ready for the day. I called the clinic to try to make an appointment before I Dr. Googled the symptoms. I messaged my husband to tell him I was taking her in, praying that I was crazy and that we were not dealing with the worst. When he asked if I was sure, I sent him a link, outlining in detail what Mayo says diabetes looks like: http://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/type-1-diabetes-in-children/basics/symptoms/con-20029197
When he read them all, did he know? I recounted the symptoms for the gentleman nurse practitioner at the walk-in clinic. I looked him in the face, begging with my eyes, to have him disagree with my diagnosis. But I wasn't surprised by the ketones and sugar in my daughter's urine, or the high blood sugar when he ordered a finger stick. I cried, cradling my big pregnant belly, standing next to my oldest daughter seated on the exam table and watching through watery eyes her sisters sharing a book in the corner. Our pediatrician came in, reached her hand out across the room, tears in her eyes as well, and said "I'm sorry." I nodded. They stepped out to make phone calls and life went on. The girls wanted to play a game of I spy and I tried to make phone calls, to the husband and the grandparents, the backup desperately needed for a few days of babysitting while we managed to take a crash course in diabetes and manage an inpatient stay for our diabetic daughter.
I want to look back and tell you that the year has flown by, that we have learned so much and have her disease well-managed. It might not be a lie. We have made it through the initial diagnosis and all the hoops of a hospital stay and clinic classes. We have trained two schools and after-school programs, helped our extended families wrap their heads and hearts around helping us with a chronic illness and continued to raise our daughters in spite of all the hardships of the year.
I can't stand this week haunting me even after feeling like we have come so far. The deja vu is harsh, looking at her blood sugars so labile and the weather starting to bring us in to the dark and cold of winter too early. The hour time change warps nap and bedtime and messes with the girls' eating habits, making them ravenous and exhausted, naughty to the max. Yet, I am wary to excuse their behavior, feeling like there needs to be a deeper meaning now after last year's fateful few weeks. The younger two were tested earlier this year, both negative for the markers for the disease, at least for now. We'll test them every year, crossing our fingers that we are not lucky enough to have another diabetic daughter. Meanwhile, we'll keep trying and failing and trying and maintaining, hopefully sometime soon feeling like mastery and success can join the vocabulary!
I will tell you that we make a lot of allowances in our household for kid behavior, attributing the nuances of naughtiness to holidays, Daylight savings time change, or the weather...last year this was the running mantra. The end of October hit us hard, me signing up to be a Daisy Girl Scout leader to twelve kindergarteners the day Charlotte got 'sick' at school. A low grade temp kept her home for a day when she slept in, ate, relaxed and played like her sisters.
It was the start of a spiral though we didn't know it. The momentum built and we felt the pull of it, changing sheets soaked in the night and washing wet pajamas. The draw was not dramatic and though it seems gradual looking back, it was a turning point for us in a short time. At the end of a swimming lesson, teeth chattering through blue lips, when I expect a exclamation of fatigue or even hunger she said," I'm sooo thirsty." I remember my response in that brick-lined locker room at the local high school, "What are you, diabetic?" I joked and though it didn't echo next to those bleachers and beach-towel clad little girls, it reverberated in my head. Through the next few days I watched her, calculated her behavior and chalked it up to an hour of different sleep, the moving of snack and meal time, drinking too much before bed, an early rising for school, heck even school itself as all-day kindergarten was a tiring thought. But maybe I really knew, let all those tick-marks add up to it over those few days.
 |
| My "Mulan" and other girlies (with a neighbor boy) getting ready for Halloween trick-or-treating. |
When he read them all, did he know? I recounted the symptoms for the gentleman nurse practitioner at the walk-in clinic. I looked him in the face, begging with my eyes, to have him disagree with my diagnosis. But I wasn't surprised by the ketones and sugar in my daughter's urine, or the high blood sugar when he ordered a finger stick. I cried, cradling my big pregnant belly, standing next to my oldest daughter seated on the exam table and watching through watery eyes her sisters sharing a book in the corner. Our pediatrician came in, reached her hand out across the room, tears in her eyes as well, and said "I'm sorry." I nodded. They stepped out to make phone calls and life went on. The girls wanted to play a game of I spy and I tried to make phone calls, to the husband and the grandparents, the backup desperately needed for a few days of babysitting while we managed to take a crash course in diabetes and manage an inpatient stay for our diabetic daughter.
I want to look back and tell you that the year has flown by, that we have learned so much and have her disease well-managed. It might not be a lie. We have made it through the initial diagnosis and all the hoops of a hospital stay and clinic classes. We have trained two schools and after-school programs, helped our extended families wrap their heads and hearts around helping us with a chronic illness and continued to raise our daughters in spite of all the hardships of the year.
I can't stand this week haunting me even after feeling like we have come so far. The deja vu is harsh, looking at her blood sugars so labile and the weather starting to bring us in to the dark and cold of winter too early. The hour time change warps nap and bedtime and messes with the girls' eating habits, making them ravenous and exhausted, naughty to the max. Yet, I am wary to excuse their behavior, feeling like there needs to be a deeper meaning now after last year's fateful few weeks. The younger two were tested earlier this year, both negative for the markers for the disease, at least for now. We'll test them every year, crossing our fingers that we are not lucky enough to have another diabetic daughter. Meanwhile, we'll keep trying and failing and trying and maintaining, hopefully sometime soon feeling like mastery and success can join the vocabulary!
Comments
Post a Comment