Diagnosis Story

In January 2012, my son was 9 years old and in Grade 4.

In February 2012 I was called into school for a Case Management meeting. The staff were concerned about his health.


He was getting tired at school and not eating all his meals. He hated walking between classes. His class is in an "annex" and there is a 2 minute walk between the annex and the main school. The class was doing this walk several times a day. They have to do this walk for morning, and afternoon recess, for lunch, and for every class trip to the library and the gym. My son was crying and complaining of being too tired to walk.


By April he was coming home with some of his lunch and snacks not being eaten. He complained that his tummy hurt. In May he complained of blurry vision. and he was still being very tired. By now I was having a great deal of trouble getting him out of bed in the mornings.

In June 2012 we reached the crisis point. On June 9th (a saturday) my son went to a friends sleepover  birthday party. The boys stayed up until 2 o'clock in the morning, drinking large 2 litre bottles of pop - (soda). They drank creaming soda, ginger ale, sprite, root beer and coca cola.

Regular Pop is just full of High Fructose Corn syrup - pure sugar. Within hours of coming home from this party on the Sunday (June 10th), my son was drinking lots of water, and peeing excessively. This went on for several days, His blurry vision was getting worse. He had completely stopped eating. He spent 2 days at home because he was so tired, he couldn't move and wouldn't eat. He went back to school for 2 days and I thought he was getting better.

I took him to the doctor at the walk-in clinic. The doctor said he looks like he has the flu, and  to keep him on the BRAT diet. BRAT = Banana, Rice, Apples and Toast.

And then came Friday June 15th. He woke up feeling bad again. So tired, he couldnt move. Eyes so blurry he couldnt see anything clearly. I gave him half an apple, He vomited it back up within 30 minutes.

 I finally also noticed that he was losing weight. Not surprising since he was not eating. I was on the computer frantically researching his sysmptoms and finally I was getting a possible diagnosis of type 1 diabetes.

After he had vomited, I decide that enough was enough. I was taking him to the Toronto Sick Kids hospital and so thats what I did.Within an hour of entering the ER, my son was in a  room, hooked up to IV and I was answering all the questions.


You gotta understand. My sons HATES NEEDLES. Absolutely detests them. So the nurses really had a battle getting those IV's into his arms. He fought those nurses like crazy and screamed like a banshee. They had to use the numbing cream. Not only that, they had to start testing his sugars every 2 hours. as well.

When he arrived at the ER, his BG (Blood glucose) was 25 mmol/L - which is quite high but not dangerously high. He was in moderate DKA, (diabetic ketoacidosis) and moderately dehydrated.

And to make things more confusing, his mother (that's me) has an autoimmune disease, but his father has Type 2 Diabetes. Noone else in the family (on either side) has ever been diagnosed with Type 1.

My son and I stayed at the hospital for around 36 hours. enough (Friday and Saturday) to get his BG numbers from 25, back down to 10. Thats when he was given an injection of insulin, with strict instructions for the entire family to return to the hospital the very next day (Sunday 17th June) for Diabetic Daycare classes.

That is how my sons Type 1 Diabetes was finally diagnosed. If he had not gone to the friends sleepover party - we may still be floundering around trying to find out what was wrong with him - maybe.

Written & Posted - November 2012



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