I plan to write a post each day about living with Type 1.
This may be a lofty goal as I am not a consistent blog poster.
I will start with my diagnosis.
I had been ill since April of 2000. I was 15 and had no clue what was wrong with me. My mom's job was having issues with their chosen health insurance providers. We did not have confirmation of coverage so going to the doc for a well-check wasn't on the horizon until it was all straightened out, and we had no idea how serious my symptoms were.
For five and a half months I was always tired, always thirsty, peeing A LOT but not losing weight and my grades were still normal. Then came October of my sophomore year of high school. I began to lost my hearing, my vision was getting worse by the day. Finally insurance was settled. I saw a commercial one night for a medication for overactive bladder, and all the people in the commercial were older adults, not teen girls. I told my mom about my peeing ALL THE TIME and told her I was worried, plus it was getting really hard to hear. The day of my appointment came, the doctor was more concerned with my hearing and flushed my ears. I was diagnosed with impacted earwax, and was told to come back in a week for a re-check. When I asked about the peeing constantly, he said I would have a finger prick to test me at my re-check. I didn't know any better, so I didn't argue.
A week goes by, it's now October 10, 2000, my hearing is better as the wax was removed. I go to the re-check, and a different doctor checked me over, and did a finger stick. The nurse came in, took a drop of blood and waited about a minute for the tester to show her whatever they were checking. The doctor came in a few minutes after this. With a grim look, he told me I needed to go to the hospital immediately, I had diabetes and my blood sugar was very high. I asked if I could grab stuff from home first and he said yes, but be quick and since my appointment was at the end of the business day to head directly to the ER to be admitted.
I go home, back my Walkman CD player, a bunch of my favorite discs, and a couple of sets of clothes (lazy pants, shirts, jeans). Right before we left for my appointment, my next door neighbor had been baking sugar cookies with her young daughters. She told me to come get one when I got back, so before my mom and dad brought me to the ER, I knocked on her door and said "I'll have to get one when I got out of the hospital, I was just diagnosed with diabetes and the doc is sending me to be admitted." She was shocked to say the least. After I got out, she told me they turned out badly and all four of their family members got sick from eating them O.O
Once we got to the ER, they admitted me to the telemetry floor as pediatrics was too full, so in addition to having to have an IV for insulin and fluids, I got the wonderful experience of being required by the regulations for that unit to wear a heart monitor. I stayed at the hospital for three nights and three days. I as educated on insulin injections by a diabetic educator whose specialty was Type 2 diabetes. I learned to inject myself with insulin. I was but on humulin R and humulin N right away. I was a crappy version to me, as I had to gently mix one vial up then combine both types of insulin in the syringe before injecting. I was put on a schedule for when to eat and how many carbs I needed throughout the day. It was HELL.
I made it home, and started my life as a 15 year old female with Type 1 Diabetes.
I will continue with more of life as a newly diagnosed diabetic in future posts.
No comments:
Post a Comment