This is part two of a three part series of articles discussing my three year old daughter’s (now four years old!) diagnoses of Type 1 Diabetes and our ensuing adventures. Last week we talked about being told that she had diabetes by our pediatrician.
After being freshly diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes in late December 2009, we were directed by our pediatrician to head off to Rady’s Children’s Hospital in San Diego. Princess K’s blood sugar was hovering between 300 – 400, which to diabetics is fairly high. We needed to get her blood sugar within normal range (80-120 for a normal person) and I needed to be trained regarding taking care of a diabetic child. Our projected stay was a minimum of three days, which to my ears could have been the same as three months. I had no idea what to expect, and from previous experiences with hospitals, I was not looking forward to our stay at all.
My children, probably like most normal children, are deathly afraid of needles. My son will literally hide under the examination table at the doctor’s office to try to get out of receiving his immunization shots. This thought went through my head driving down to the hospital as I thought about having to give my daughter insulin shots every single day of her life. This was not going to be at all fun for anybody involved.
After getting lost driving to the hospital, which is something only I am capable of doing even with a GPS with turn by turn directions, and even harder considering the hospital is HUGE and visible from a fair distance we arrived and parked in the parking garage across the street from the hospital. I unloaded our luggage, which was three days worth of clothes, enough toys to keep a cooped up three year old entertained for several days, and other odd and end supplies considering I would not be leaving the hospital for three days at a minimum. Dropping the bags on to the ground off and on the entire way up to our particular wing, we finally made it to our designated location and checked in.
After checking in and making it to our room, we had the honor of meeting some of the friendliest, nicest staff I have ever met at a hospital. Every single person we met at Rady’s took the time to explain everything to us in detail and we never felt that the doctors or nurses were in a hurry and just wanted to get out of the room. Everybody was willing to give us whatever time we needed. The doctors and nurses were incredibly professional and every one was great with my daughter. My kids are both very shy children and the staff took great pains to make her feel comfortable and that she was special.
The nurses took hours and hours out of their day to train us in all aspects of what exactly diabetes is and how to take care of our daughter. We met with nutritionists that trained us how to change our diet for a diabetic and what she could and could not eat and how to make a schedule of when she was supposed to eat.
As a diabetic, we have to feed her on a set schedule. She needs to eat breakfast, lunch, dinner, AND snacks all at certain times throughout the day to maintain her blood sugar levels. In addition, she needs to have a certain amount of carbs at her meals and snack times, so I need to measure out everything that she eats. Throughout the day, we need to check her blood sugar level by pricking her finger. Depending on her blood sugar levels, she may need extra insulin or possibly extra carbs. Lots to learn!
After wandering around the hospital on one of our daily adventures, we discovered that the hospital had a well stocked play room. This quickly became one of our favorite places to go, and of course, the play room staff were just incredible with the kids. The play room was only open for a few hours each day, but children are allowed to take games, toys, movies, or art supplies back to their rooms to play with. Princess K discovered that she LOVES painting, so we always took back paints, paper, and brushes to paint in our room. The walls in our room were covered with Princess K’s paintings, but she was still producing art at an incredible rate.
As a computer dork, my all time high point was learning that the hospital had free wifi access. This allowed me to get onto Twitter and start asking questions, or post Facebook status updates, or to just do general research on diabetes.
Coming into the hospital, I felt completely and utterly overwhelmed and felt a little guilty and felt that we had done something wrong with Princess K. Maybe she ate too much Halloween candy, or that she got hurt someway without us knowing, or something else that we could have foreseen. She had recently had a H1N1 shot and had a week long fever after the shot, so I asked a lot of questions if it was possible if the H1N1 vaccine had something to do with her diabetes (no, it doesn’t).
The doctors and nurses calmed me down and let me know that this was something we had no control over. Generally, type 1 diabetes is something in your genetic history and it just happens. It doesn’t appear from eating too much Halloween candy, it doesn’t come from falling off the swing at school, and it doesn’t come from your brother feeding you crayons when mom and dad aren’t looking. I still felt like crap that my poor daughter had something like this that she had to live with for the rest of her life and that there was absolutely nothing that I could do for her to make it better, but at least I understood that this wasn’t something that we had control over. She could never again just grab something out of the cupboard and eat it. She could never eat tons of Halloween candy (which is probably a good thing anyway).
So, I went into the hospital, a crazy, insane person that had no clue what the hell we were going to do. I left the hospital, still a little insane, but knowing much more regarding the management of diabetes thinking “I think we can do this”.
Join us next week as I complete this series. We finally escape from our hospital stay and make our way home. Super Mega Dad is completely in charge of Princess K. Will he be able to remember to do the insulin shots, the glucose checks, AND measure all the food?
