Where to start??

So, it has been a little while since I have posted. Why?? Basically because I have been stalling. I want to write about diabetes. I want to share all the thoughts and feelings and worries and ups and downs and highs and lows and stresses and successes and guesses and fails. I want to make it all make sense. I want to be in control!! But, I'm not :-( Fortunately, I know who is. God's got this!! I can't "fix" it and I don't have to!!

So, where to start?? I could write about diabetes for a month straight and still not say everything that I want to. How much to share?? I have said before that I need to write for me. But, other people might read this too. Do you all really want to hear every fear?? Do you really want to know that every morning when I go to wake Brenna up, I think that this could be it. This could be the morning she doesn't wake up. What if she went too high or too low in the night and I wasn't there to help her? What if......??

I guess, the best place to start is at the beginning. Diagnosis.

January 2013--

Brenna had been using the bathroom A LOT. This is the only symptom that we caught in the beginning. I was convinced it was a UTI. Her teacher had e-mailed to say that she was using the bathroom a lot at school. My niece, Patience, had been spending a couple days with us and sleeping in Brenna's room. She said that Brenna had gotten up at least 10 times in the night to go to the bathroom. So, I decided to take Brenna to the doctor. It was Saturday, her doc wasn't open. I was just going to run her to the clinic at Walgreens to get some antibiotics. Then we would hurry home because we had a busy day planned.

I asked Brenna to shower quickly before we left. She started crying. She could barely get herself in and out of the shower. I told myself that she was acting like a baby for the attention. As I helped her out of the shower (not so nicely), I noticed how skinny she was. I guess it had been awhile since I had seen her naked. She was skin and bones :-(

I began to ask about other symptoms of UTI. Did she have pain or burning? Itching? Anything? No. This was starting to scare me. I had looked up her symptoms a couple days before. Diabetes popped to the top of the list but I blew it off. Thought for sure I was being a hypochondriac. 

I still thought, that can't be it. It's just a weird UTI with weird symptoms. She's going to be ok. We'll get some meds and go on with our merry lives. So, we headed to Walgreens.

On the way, I remember praying that it was just an infection. An easy fix. I think that God was preparing me for something worse. I just had a sense in that moment that our day was not going to go as planned.

We got to Walgreens, waited forever, and finally gave a urine sample. The girl who saw us first put a strip in the urine. She looked at me, looked back at the strip, and excused herself. We were then taken in to see the doctor (or nurse??) who told us that there was sugar in Brenna's urine. I had no clue what that meant. She said that they needed to prick her finger to check her blood sugar. Oh My!! Brenna did not like that!! (Funny that she does that to herself 10 times a day now!!) The level was too high for her meter to read. (I now know that means over 600!!)

Still had no clue. Doctor said "I think that Brenna may have diabetes. You need to take her to the ER right now. I will call ahead and let them know you're coming." Ok Lady, relax. I was so naive. I had no idea how sick my little girl was. She could have died.

We went to the ER and were immediately taken back to a room. No waiting, this is different. The nurse asked some questions that we had not been asked before. Was Brenna drinking a lot? Yes. (We actually found several water bottles in her bed.) Eating a lot? Yes. But, that was just a growth spurt, right?? Losing weight even though she was eating so much. Yes :-( Irritable? Yes. Tired? Yes.

Oh my goodness. This can't be happening. I called James. He came to be with us.

The hospital checked her blood sugar again. 747!! (Normal is right around 100) She was hooked to an IV and insulin was started right away. She was down in the 300s a couple hours later when the ambulance arrived to take her to Rockford Memorial where we would spend 3 days learning how to live again. That was the longest ride of my life. Thankfully, the wonderful people with Ridge Ambulance let me ride in the back with her while James went home to take care of a couple things and get the other 2 girls. Brenna was so scared. She was hungry but couldn't eat until the blood sugar came down. She kept saying, "I'm not sick, Mommy. I'm just hungry."

The first days were tough. We had so much to learn. Everything was new and scary. On the day before we would be going home, a nurse came to talk to us about possible complications. The list is long and scary. Blindness, heart disease, seizures, coma, amputations, and death to name a few. How was I going to handle this? How was I going to learn to take care of this child? Why me? Why her? Why us?

I cried more in 3 days than in the rest of my life combined. I hurt physically, mentally, and emotionally. I was terrified!! I was exhausted.

We were sent home with a very dependent child, a ton of prescriptions, a lot of information, and a lot more questions. Day by day, with God's grace, we have made it this far. I barely recognize the people in that car over a year ago.

And that's it, that's the day(s) that changed our lives forever. I'll write more about what we have learned and experienced since then. But for now, that's enough. Thank you all for your love and prayers in our time of crisis. No matter what, we knew we were loved :-)