Wednesday, April 11, 2012

The ways 1 week can change your world...

Things are pretty much back to normal...
Super Boy and Super Girl are fighting and arguing (like usual) over tiny things...
The house is somewhere between natural disaster area and spotless...
and Super Girl has 
TYPE 1 DIABETES...
WAIT...
WHAT???
Yes, you read that right! The last week has been monumental in our lives.
Thursday April 5, 2012 will go down in history as the day that changed our lives forever...again...
Instead of welcoming a new baby to our family (that was what changed our lives last time...), we welcomed nurses, doctors, and technicians at Primary Children's Hospital into our lives.
It all started a couple of weeks prior when Super Girl started wetting the bed EVERY NIGHT. I thought, "Oh, she is just drinking too much water at night" so I told her to stop drinking so much water. 
She kept wetting the bed, so I made her wear pull-up diapers at night...
which she peed through EVERY NIGHT, ATLEAST TWICE A NIGHT...
so I asked her if anything was upsetting her at home or at school, she said no...
and I am thinking "maybe she has a bladder infection or similar problem... 
then Thursday came around, and we had a nice SUGAR FILLED MORNING...
after eating a few jelly beans, Super Girl complained that her stomach felt ill...
and the red flags SMACKED ME IN THE FACE...
I remembered Super Girl's aunt who was diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes a few years ago...
she told us how she had a soda and some cheesecake and felt so sick that she thought she had food poisoning from bad cheesecake...
and I remembered a Baby Sitters Club book in which one of the girls is up at night, super thirsty, and her mom tells her that she thinks they need to go to the doctor...
where they find out that the girl has Type 1 Diabetes...
I am a border-line hypoglycemic (my blood sugar gets low if I don't eat every 6 hours or so)...
so I decide to test her blood sugar on my meter, just to see...
and the number comes back as "HI", which means over 600...
so I tested again thinking maybe that that strip was bad...
and it was "HI" again...
so I tested myself to make sure the whole batch of strips wasn't bad...
and I was 87 (normal for me)...
so I did a control test just to make sure my reading was correct, and the control came back fine...
so I did 1 last test on Super Girl, using a different finger...
and it was "HI" again...
so I called her doctor and told him what was going on...
he said to bring her in a few hours later and to take her to the E.R. if she became drowsy...
so, NATURALLY, I FREAKED OUT!!!
Super Girl had a tummy ache, so she wanted to lay down...
so, NATURALLY, I FREAKED OUT!!!
I talked to Hot Mama and she said to follow my gut...
so I decided to take her to the hospital...
halfway there I thought "Grandma had to deal with diabetes, maybe she has an opinion"...
so we stopped there and she suggested calling the hospital...
so I talked with a WONDERFUL MAN who told me Super Girl was in no immediate danger, and to take her to her scheduled appointment later that day...
so when we got to the appointment, the doctor checked her blood sugar...
and it was "HI" again, over 600...AGAIN...3 hours after eating!!!
so, NATURALLY, I FREAKED OUT!!!
The doctor said there was no reason for her sugar to be that high unless she had diabetes...
so, NATURALLY, I FREAKED OUT!!!
Then he said she would need to be admitted to the hospital for a couple of days so we could get her sugar under control and be educated on how to deal with this new diagnosis...
so, NATURALLY, I FREAKED OUT!!!
The doctor left the room to make some arrangements...
and I LOST IT...
I started crying and couldn't stop...
I called Tall Boy to let him know what was going on, and he was SO CALM...
he helped me calm down and give him the information I had...
so we went home and packed a couple of bags and headed to Grandma's house to let Super Boy stay there while I picked up Tall Boy from work and drove Super Girl to Primary Children's Hospital to be admitted...
we arrived around 6:40p, got checked into the ER, and had super Girl's blood sugar taken...
it was 758, 6 hours after eating!!!
They gave her a shot of insulin and let us go eat dinner in the cafeteria...
my stomach was in knots from the stress, so this is all I could eat...
around 10:30 P.M., after being in the E.R. for HOURS...we FINALLY got Super Girl into a room in the hospital...
 they had really cute animals throughout the hospital...we were in the F(frog) wing...
but they also had an E (elephant), G (gorilla) & H (hippo) wing on our floor
we were in the lion room...
with an AWESOME view of the parking structure outside :)
 Super Boy only cared that they had a Play Station 2 in our room!

 
 and this is how Super Girl looked the whole time...just smiles!!!
 we were taught so many things about how the body works and how to manage diabetes...
I just cannot sing the praises of Primary Children's Hospital loud enough. They had wonderful staff to educate us, a great play room with free crafts and fun for all who needed a little break, and amazing services for bringing fun to the room when we couldn't leave. We had the world at our fingertips just by dialing our in-room phone.
 Now we are home, adjusting to a new carb-counting lifestyle, full of finger pokes and needle sticks, testing strips and LOTS of LOVE...
We love you SO MUCH Super Girl, we are so proud of the way you are handling all of this...we can all learn a lot from your attitude and smile!



Monday, April 2, 2012

Happy Birthday Super Boy!!!

 
10 years ago I was starting to have severe labor pains after 30 hours of pitocin (induction medicine) 6 HOURS later (3 of which were PUSHING) we finally had a C-section to deliver our baby boy....the one we thought was a girl...
Tall Boy was SO HAPPY!!! 
Although it was the most painful and difficult thing my body had ever done, we finally had a child to join our family! What a blessing he has been!
 
From a fun and mischievous infant...
 
... to being a great big brother to Super Girl!
He has become so self sufficient...
and so willing to serve others...
and respectful and appreciative of his family...
 
with his own hopes and beliefs...
likes and dislikes...
with so much potential for whatever he wants to be!
Happy Birthday Super Boy! You are loved so much more than you will ever know!