That was then, this is now

And so a dandelion grows... as did our knowledge of just how much our lives would be affected by "sugar" diabetes.  How ignorant we were about this disease and I need to remind myself of this when people make their uninformed comments or questions of us. "Well, at least it's managable." "She'll need to eat properly now" "Did she eat a lot of sugar when she was young?" Yes, those comments could have been made by me before. It seems like so long ago. That is one of the reasons this blog is going to be good for my daughter and myself (and hopefully you :o). It will remind us of how far we've come in our journey from the blissfull ignorance of knowing so little to the frustration of knowing so much more but never, never enough to consistently keep all her blood glucose levels within the optimal range.

And we're still learning... but instead of learning about the disease itself, we're now trying to learn how to transfer our passion as parents for the best bg management on to our daughter who has so many other important areas of her life. She no longer wants to be known as "the diabetes girl" or have the teachers meet with us before the school year to go over all the intricacies of diabetes managment. How do we let go after 9 years of constant worry and let our daughter take on what she sees as her independence.

I guess we take it one day a time.

grace :o)

a seed is planted

Our third child, Dandelion, was diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes in March of 2001 as we were about to head out for a sailing trip.  It was the day before we were to leave and Dani spiked a fever that would not come down. We tried everything (Tylenol, Advil, popsicles, cool baths, no clothing) and still she remained hot, hot, hot.  Of course, we waited till evening before deciding that we better get this sorted out at the hospital emergency. Someone tell me why is it when darkness falls all health issues appear so much worse? I feel competent and even knowledgable as a mother when the sun is high in the sky but let that light dim and there go all my supermom powers with it. Darkness is my krytonite.

So, we wait and wait to be seen with our 5 year old daughter, feverish in our arms. A pediatric bed  (crib to the horror of our oh-so-grownup daughter) became available and not too much later we were seen by the nurseu to take her vitals. Yup, it's a fever alright. No other symptoms of illness like vomiting so they decided to take a urine sample to determine a white blood cell count for any infection that may be the cause.

Not too long after this, TWO nurses come back into the room. A male and a female with very concerned looks on their faces. I've got to admit, I was pretty freaked out by this and stood there with dandelion's daddy expecting the worst. What that was we had no clue.

They stood there a minute, shifting from one foot to the other while explaining that they had used a multi diagnostic dip strip. It was here that they looked to each other, took a deep breath and almost whispered that they had found sugar in her sample. Sugar?! All this fuss about sugar? D-dad and I gazed at each other blankly and shrugged. The nurses tried again because it was obvious to them we have no idea what this might mean. "We think your daughter may have (whisper) diabetes."

It that all? Well, fine, we could all handle that. Just means she can't have sugar, right?