It was the weekend of Halloween, 2009. Our entire family had been plagued with the flu for the few weeks beforehand so it didn't surprise me when my youngest daughter, Elsye, began showing symptoms that Friday morning. My 3 children have always been very healthy, just the occasional cold or flu, but rarely anything serious enough to actually take them to the doctor for. At the time, this seemed no different.
For 2 days I nursed her as usual, but by Halloween night she began vomiting. Now I realized I was dealing with the dreaded STOMACH flu. So, we began pushing fluids. The poor thing ended up spending most of her trick-or-treating time being pushed around in a stroller (she's 5 so this was utterly pathetic). By Sunday she seemed to be doing nothing but drinking, urinating and vomiting. Everything that went in came back up, it was the worst case of the stomach flu I'd ever seen. I was starting to get a little worried, mostly just that she would get dehydrated. I vowed to my husband and my mom that if we didn't see any signs of improvement by Monday morning that I would call the doctor. That wasn't necessary...Monday morning when my husband went downstairs to get ready for work he found our baby unconscious on the floor with the refrigerator open and the juice pitcher next to her on the floor, empty. We quickly decided that it was time for a trip to the emergency room. So we drove her to Mary Bridge Children's Hospital near our home.
The experience was such a whirlwind. They barely asked us anything before rushing us back to a room and after one look from the nurse there was a doctor there, which quickly escalated to a couple of doctors and several nurses. As a room full of medical professionals began working on our daughter, my husband and I had all the worst thoughts running through our heads trying to figure out exactly what was going on. How could a simple stomach flu turn into this so quickly?!? It didn't take 5 minutes for the doctor to pull us aside and deliver the grim news "Mr. and Mrs. Dohse, your daughter has Type 1 Diabetes.". The words fell on me like a ton of bricks. I was having a terrible time comprehending what this woman was actually telling me. How in the world could they have diagnosed my daughter with a chronic disease in less than 5 minutes? This had to be some kind of mistake.
As we found out, it was no mistake, and thanks to an ER doctor who was extremely familiar with the symptoms of Diabetic Ketoacidosis Elsye was quickly on her way to recovery. We spent the next 2 days in the PICU getting her stable, then transferred to the pediatric ward for 3 days of intensive training on how to be our daughter's pancreas. It's amazing how far we've come since that day. Moments when I thought I'd never be able to take her home because I had no idea how to take care of my own child anymore to counting carbs, calculating correction insulin doses, checking blood sugars, giving SHOTS, and the countless other responsiblities my new job as "pancreas" designated to me.
I've since learned that so many other children and their families are facing the same struggles that we face everyday, and I've been inspired to share our experiences with them. Partially as therapy for myself (talking about it can be helpful), and also in hopes that something I write here might help another family deal with their great responsibility of being their child's pancreas.
