This is my first post at my new blog at 654andCounting. I thought I would post it here as well.
It seems like when I meet other Type 1s, one of the first things we do is exchange stories about our diagnoses. I feel like it is important for me to remember what I went through because no matter how much I hate taking 5 shots a day, it is far better than going through this. I apologies for this being a bit long, but unfortunately I was pretty sick for a while before being diagnosed.
In hindsight the first signs started during winter break. I was starting to become extra thirsty and at one point mentioned it to a friend (who I would later find out his brother is Type 1). He said that my increased thirst might be due to diabetes. I brushed him off because how could I have diabetes because I wasn’t overweight.
A week into the semester my eyesight suddenly changed and became burry. I was unable to read anything more than a few feet away. I couldn’t read the blackboard, recognize people from any kind of distance, and I couldn’t see the TV (this made watching the Colts/Jets playoff game kinda frustrating). I went to AU’s health center, which told me to go see an eye doctor. I went to an eye doctor and mentioned the possibility of diabetes. He told me that I was too old for Type 1 and that I did not have any of the warning signs of Type 2. He prescribed me with glasses. A day latter my eyesight returned to normal. I went back to the eye doctor and he said that I had an accommodating spasm, which had been corrected when he dilated my eyes. I am still not sure if my vision change was due to diabetes or an accommodating spasm, but the impact of the doctor’s dismissal of diabetes caused me to not mention the possibility to other health professionals.
With my eyes back to normal, I thought every thing was OK, but about a week or two later I started to show other signs. This was early February, just a day after DC’s great blizzard. I went out to shovel out my car. I had to take a water bottle with me because I was pretty thirsty, but just thought it was because of the dry weather. I shoveled for a few minutes, but quickly became fatigued. I went back to my apartment and threw up. I thought I had just over exerted myself and had drunk to much water.
A few days later I started to develop heartburn (which I would later learn was probably due to my body starting to enter diabetic ketoacidosis) and other digestive problems (details of which I have decided to omit). After trying over-the-counter remedies, I went back to the Health Center. The doctor prescribed me something for the heartburn and told me to eat better and drink plenty of water. (Something I was already doing!)
The prescription helped my heartburn, but my other issues persisted. At the same time my thirst was starting to increase. I started having to carry around a water bottle with me at all times and would routinely finish off a whole nalgene during a class. At the end of February I started to develop a sore that would not heal. I was also noticing that my right thigh was going numb. My fatigue was also increasing and it was starting to become difficult to carry groceries or to walk up stairs.
I went back to the Health Center and told the doctor that while the heartburn medication had worked, I still had digestive issues, a strange sore (that was now healed), increased thirst and a numb thigh. He told me that it was good the medication had worked and to eat better to fix the digestive issues and try over-the-counter remedy. The wound he thought was a cyst and would require surgery at some point. When I asked about numbness, he suggested that I had pinched a nerve during a long train ride during spring break. I then asked about the increased thirst and fatigue and he said, “You keep throwing symptoms at me and I don’t know what you want me to do.” This, like the dismissal by the eye doctor, caused me to not push these medical professionals to find out what was wrong with me and to put off going to the doctor again.
By this time, now mid-March, I started to become very fatigued and irritable. I would get into arguments without know why. I stopped doing any reading for classes and struggle to stay awake while trying to write papers. I fell asleep during class and one time drifted off at my internship. My thirst also became extreme, as I now had to take “water breaks” on the way from the Berks (my apartment building a few blocks from campus) to class. Around this time my heartburn medication ran out and I started to develop more sores.
I went back to the Health Center and met with a different medical professional. He said that the old sore wasn’t a cyst and tested the new sore for staph. I had “learned” not to mention too many symptoms to the health center and decided that it was best to not tell him about my many other problems. The staph test came back negative, but he still thought it was staph and gave me a prescription.
It was now early April. A friend from home had come to visit me. He noted my weight loss. It was something that I was had recognized, but dismissed as part of my eating better. I was also dismissive of other people saying that I didn’t look good. I KNEW I wasn’t ok and mixed with my irritability, made it sometimes explosive to bring it up.
On April 15, I went back to the Health Center (for the 5th time that semester) determined to get an answer. The staph medicine had not helped the sore to heal. My increase thirst, frequent urination (I was waking up three times a night), fatigue and weight loss was just too much for me to ignore.
When I went to the Health Center and I told them about my weight loss. I weighed in at 119 lbs. I stayed at the screen, scared to death. I knew I had lost weight but could not believe that I had lost 30 lbs. They then test my urine for ketones (something at the time I did not know what they were). They test came back positive and they then tested my blood glucose level. The meter read “HI”. I did not know what this meant, but the doctor with good reason seemed upset. He tested it again with the same result. He then told me that he suspected diabetes and that I needed to go to the ER.
Once at the ER, they tested my blood and it was 654. I was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes and told that I was in diabetic ketoacidosis, a potential life-threatening condition where the body, starved for energy due to lack of insulin, starts to burn fat and produce ketones. The ER doctor said that he was amazed that I was able to walk in. Also they were worried about my low potassium levels (because I had flushed them out by drinking so much water). Potassium regulates muscles and they were concerned about my heart.
I would spend a night in the ICU and two more nights in the general hospital. And overtime come to realize how my life had changed. This, I guess, is what this blog may be about. My struggle to adapt to a chronic illness that I did not causes and in many respects can not control.
Well, I guess I have written way too much. Kudos to anyone that read the whole thing. I certainly know that if I were in your position I probably wouldn’t have.