Wednesday, June 20, 2012

He's got Diabetes!!!

Last week, on June 15, 2012, my 10 year old son was so lethargic and tired, he could not do anything. He could barely get out of bed. He also could not hold down what little food he was eating.

I did some research online and discovered that over the last few months and weeks, he had been exhibiting all the signs of Type 1 Diabetes, and neither myself, his father nor the staff from his school were recognizing the problem. They knew he was refusing to eat, but we all thought it was for self-image reasons. After all this boy is very tall and quite big for his age.

But anyway, once I figured out that he might have diabetes, I rushed him to the Toronto Sick Kids Hospital (yes we live in Toronto, Canada), to the ER  (Emergency Room), where it was discovered that his blood glucose level was high. It was 25 mmol/L. He also had ketoacidosis.

He was put on an insulin IV drip (as well as drips for sodium and potassium), and was admitted to the main hospital around 9 pm that same night.

The following day, when his blood glucose dropped to 10, his acidosis had gone and he was feeling and looking much better, he was released to go home at 6 pm.

The entire family had strict instructions to come back to the "Diabetic Daycare" the next day (Sunday) for the first of 2 days of intensive diabetic education.

The 2 days of diabetic education are now done. My son is back in school and looking and acting so much more like himself.  The change is amazing.

Starting on Friday (22nd June) we will begin 4 more weeks of diabetic education- but this is only 1 half day per week. This is where we will learn about counting carbs, taking insulin to match the carbs, how to recover from low and high blood sugar levels, and hopefully how to cook some fast but healthy meals for diabetics.


This is my son's glucose case - for doing finger pokes. The blue, white and gray item at top centre is the lancet for poking fingers. The white lancets on the right are the needles for the lancet. On the left is the Glucose metre reader and the round container at the bottom, holds the strips for testing blood. These strips go into the reader.

My husband is also diabetic, but he has type 2 which is NOT autoimmune.
Type 1 Diabetes is an autoimmiune disease, and I also happen to have an autoimmune disease as well.

I was never a fan of maths. It is the one subject I would always fail.

This blog will be a diary of my journey as I sally forth into the wonderful world of Diabetes, insulin, counting carbs and battling with DIABETIC MATHS.

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