My Daughter's Story

My daughter, Haley, has always been affected by sugar for as long as I can remember. I started monitoring her sugar intake right away because she would get so crazy, or get horribly sick to the point of vomiting. I always thought she had a food allergy or something. We got her tested for every allergy there was, but of course nothing came up. I don't know if she was always border line diabetic, and the thought never crossed my mind back then, but I just made sure not to give her sugar in her meals. Every year, for as long as she has been able to eat solids, she was always sick over the holidays because she would eat more sugars than she was allowed.

Now at age 10, Haley had been on the swim team for 3 years already. Haley started getting more active this past year, and really working harder at getting better times. The irony of this is she had a best friend on the swim team that has been a Type 1 Diabetic since age 2, so Haley was very familiar with what to do once she was diagnosed. Unfortunately her friend’s parents got relocated for a job, and just moved away this last summer. Both girls are very sad about that. But they stay in touch via the email.

This past summer she started losing a lot of weight. We all thought she was going through a growth spurt or something, because she was growing taller as well, but the change is/was very visible. In February she weighed 98 lbs, and by the time they admitted her into the hospital, she was 71 lbs.

I grew concerned over the summer, thinking she was starting to have an eating disorder or something, watching her at every meal, making sure she wasn’t throwing up the food, etc. So I scheduled a doctor visit to make sure she was ok. The soonest they could get her in was September 17th, and of course when they checked her urine, they immediately knew.

Haley’s only big sign to me was the weight loss. Looking back now, she did go the bathroom a lot, but I dismissed it because she drank a lot of water. Her eyesight got much worse, and she was having a lot of stomach cramps, but I again dismissed it thinking she may be starting her period early.

I had a lot of guilt that first couple of weeks. But I am very grateful that I had the parent of my daughter’s friend to talk to, and there is one other student in my daughter’s school that also is Type 1. She was diagnosed 3 years ago, and is already on the pump.

I am very grateful to have such support as these community websites. The more support we have for each other, the easier we can make for ourselves. I know I am not alone in this, and I really appreciate you and all the others that are there for me.

Isn’t funny how after your child is diagnosed you can look back and see how long the signs were there but did not recognize them? My son was diagnosed at age 4 and I can look back and see different times where his blood sugar must have been out of control. I could never understand why when had “smarties” he would back into a corner and scream and cry and act as if I were a stranger to him or when he drank chocolate milk he would almost always vomit later that night.

I did the same thing when I was diagnosed. the funny thing about it is that I am a Medical assistant, I had gestational diabetes with all three children and diabetes runs heavily in my family so I know the signs of diabtes but didn’t put them together until after I was diagnosed. A 20 oz bottle of water would last me ALL day and then I found myself thirsty all the time, an urgent and frequent need to urinate, buring and pins and needles in my feet ( I had gone to the doc about this 3 months before being diagnosed and she game water pills? ) I use to eat only one time a day but then found my self with very bad hunger pains all the time… infections that where hard to get rid of… after beign diagnosed it was like a light bulb went off in my head…I felt ashamed at first because I should have known better… I guess it’s like a heart attack… most women don’t know there having one because there are so many different symptoms…

I hope haley continues to do well and we will all be thinking of her…thanks for sharing your story with us…