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How I Feel About Having a 2-Year-Old Diabetic
I have looked back in the last 9 months and often wondered how I missed the signs that my daughter, Zoee, was diabetic. I have family members who are diabetic and the signs are the same. I am a Health Care Aide and was trained to watch for these signs, but somehow I missed them with Zoee. I do feel guilty for that. For feeling frustrated when she would be up screaming and crying constantly for hours at night, wanting bottle after bottle. I feel guilty for not understanding why she was soaking right through her diapers so much that she was soaked from her armpits down to her toes to the point of always having to change her clothes and bedding. I feel guilty for getting upset that she wanted to eat and drink all the time. There was no stopping her. I would give her a bottle of water and she was back 2 seconds later for more. This went on all day and night. I could not understand why she was an unhappy baby all the time. She never wanted anyone but me. She would scream when someone other than me tried to touch her. She just wanted to cuddle all the time. I feel bad that the whole time she was getting so sick, I just wanted to get away from her screaming and wanting me all the time. I even missed the sign of her losing weight. At one point, she lost five pounds in ten days. I knew something was different because people were saying, Hey, Shannon, Zoee is having a great growth spurt. I would think, a growth spurt should make her taller or weigh more not lose weight.
I am thankful for that fact that bells were going off in my head and screaming for me to call someone about her. I called her feeding specialist who told me to get her sugar level checked over the weekend. My Dh and I decided to drop whatever we were doing and go right away to get her checked so we could know if it was a behavioural problem or something else. I sat in the waiting room alone with her thinking that they were going to laugh me out of the hospital and say that she was just starting her terrible twos early at 18 months. When they took us into the room and poked her finger and the monitor showed that her sugar levels were too high for the monitor to read, my heart raced. I just knew that something was not right. I looked at the nurse who told me that it meant that she had diabetes, Type One, and that she would have to be on insulin for the rest of her life. The doctor came in and told me that it was a good thing that I came in with her when I did because she would have ended up in IUC the next day if I had not. I was shocked at that. I didn't really know how sick my baby was. I will never forget how close it came to her being in a coma and maybe even to losing her.
People ask me now, after the last 9 months, how she is doing with the needles. How is she with the 4x a day or more finger pokes that check her sugar? Zoee amazes me. I feel very proud of my daughter. I see a very different child. She is a very happy child who shows her emotions very well. She is my little drama princess at times. She does well for a child having to be poked so often because of sugar checks and getting her insulin which is 4x a day as well. It is hard for her and me to have to watch when and what she eats. She cannot just eat when she wants. Everything is monitored so that I can watch her sugar levels and try to keep them stable. There are days that I don't want to have to give her needles or to check her sugars or to watch what she is eating. I want her to be able to eat like her brother, anything she wants. I don't want to hear crying in the middle of the night and to have to go poke her finger to see if her blood sugar is too low or too high so that I can go give her more insulin to correct it. I know that I must give her these shots so that she can live, and she will die without them. These are the words of the doctor, "Zoee must have this or she will die." Zoee will learn this as well when she is old enough. There are nights that I wake up in a panic because I am worried that her sugars dropped and that she is in a coma. Silly, eh? These are my new worries and how the guilt of not seeing how sick she was is for me. I guess I can say that I know she can have a normal life and can do everything she wants to do as long as she has her insulin and watches what she is doing. She is my star! She is surviving and so I am!
Written by: MommaSmurf, Shannon
Read more about Other Conditions:
The Difference between Type One and Type Two Diabetes,
The Difference Between HYPERGLYCEMIA and HYPOGLYCEMIA,
Guidelines for Care of Children With Type One Diabetes
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