At the beginning of October Grayson came down with
diarrhea. It wasn't horrible. Just several dirty diapers a day that were loose
and mucousy and a diaper rash. He made sure we always put desitin on his bum
and things weren't too bad. It calmed down a bit after a few days and was just
a few dirty diapers a day. A few days after the diarrhea started Grayson
started waking up wet everyday. Now the kid normally fills his diaper every
night but now he was doing that and more. He was soaked in pee every morning.
My first thought was that maybe his diapers had gotten too small. So the next
time I was at Walmart I picked up some size 6 diapers for him to wear at night.
Well guess what he still woke up soaked in pee. I wasn't sure what to make of
that. When he was a newborn there was a pack of Huggies diapers I bought at
Walmart that were defective or something, every time he wore them he wet his
outfit. So part of me wondered if that had happened again. I did try to cut
down on his night time drinks to see if that would help. I also wondered if it
was somehow related to him having diarrhea. The thought crossed my mind
"should I call the Doctor about this" but I thought it was maybe a
weird thing to call the doctor about. Then his thirst picked up. He was downing
his drinks and asking for more right away. Thursday October 13th after him
drinking a ton the thought did hit me to remember the symptoms of diabetes. A
year earlier a little St. George girl had died because her diabetes hadn't been
caught in time. I had seen a post on there that listed the symptoms and
suddenly I had the nagging feeling to check them. That night as I was laying in
bed I searched for their Facebook page. I could only remember the little girls
name started with a K but I was able to google and find it "Kisses for
Kycie". And there I saw the top two symptoms being extreme thirst and
increased urination. Shoot! Knowing that my sister had Type 1 Diabetes and I
had an autoimmune disease I knew that it was a real possibility for
Grayson.
For
whatever reason I woke up Friday and had forgotten about all this. I did have a
busy day trying to get samples ready for the Relief Society Craftivity I was in
charge of. I also babysat for a neighbor all morning and had plans to go out
with some friends for dinner to celebrate a friends birthday. So yeah I was
distracted. Just before I left Grayson was on one of his drinking binges. He
ended up getting his brothers to get him countless chocolate milks. I left just
as Dave got home and he got the the task of making the kids dinner. Well
Grayson who had drank way too much milk threw up at dinner. Then after Dave got
G all cleaned up and in jammies he threw up again all over the couch and family
room. I walked in just after it happened. I grabbed him and took him upstairs
for a bath. While in the bath the kid kept saying he was thirsty and even used
a bath cup to drink bath water. Yuck! So after his bath I took him to the
kitchen and got him a sippy with water. He drank some and then threw up water
on me. Gross! At this point I figured he must have the stomach flu since he
wasn't even holding water down. I got him in his third pair of jammies for the
night and snuggled him in my bed for awhile. He kept asking for a drink. Even
as we put him to bed he just begged "Mommy Please have a drink yes"
it was heart breaking and it was hard not to give him one but we figured he
would just throw it up again. We'd gone through this before with Tanner and he
would just keep throwing up. The poor guy fell asleep quickly after putting him
to bed which was good.
Saturday he woke up and seemed completely fine. We spent the morning
working on my craft samples and then the boys had football games right after
lunch. Tanner invited Caroline to come watch. Grayson was doing so well. He was
hungry and ate a ton of snacks during the game. He wasn't super thirsty on
Saturday. After the games Dave, Tanner, Grayson and I ran some errands. Grayson
seemed fine. He went crazy for a berry smoothie at Costco but that's not
abnormal for him. It was just a normal day.
Sunday morning is a blur. I was doing all the last minute stuff to get
ready for advertising the Craftivity. Dave and the kids went ahead to church
and I caught up. Somehow we actually scored a pew, we are usually too late for
that. It was near the front of the chapel though. Tanner got bumped from
passing the Sacrament since he was the oldest and there were plenty of Deacons.
Just as the music started before the sacrament Grayson started asking for a
drink. I tried to reason with him but he wouldn't have it. He was insistent
that he needed a drink. He started to get louder so I had Tanner take him out
to get water. After the sacrament was over Tanner brought him back in. Maybe a
minute later and Grayson was begging Landon to take him out for a drink. Landon
brought him right back and once again he lasted a minute or two before he was
begging for more water. He wasn't quiet about it at all. I told Landon to just
stay out there with him. Crap! The diabetes thought came back to me. I googled
"always thirsty toddler". Of course diabetes came up. I read another
ladies question about it and some of the answers. One answer said that you
could buy something to do the test at home. After reading this I sent Caroline
a text. Yay! She was already done with Church and offered to come to our house when
we were done at 2pm to check him. I then sent Dave(who has been completely in
the dark) a text about thirst and bed wetting and diabetes. Yep I got a whole
lot out of Sacrament meeting. And the funny thing is the speaker just so happens to have type one diabetes.
I then briefly told my friend that is Grayson's nursery teacher
to make sure he didn't eat after 1pm because we were going to check him. I told
her I was sure it was nothing. I didn't say anything to anyone else. After
church we headed home and waited for Caroline. The kids really didn't have a
clue what was going on. Dave was trying to leave to go hometeaching and
Caroline showed up. We did it right away. Her monitor read High. Uhh, not the
peace of mind I was hoping for. We tried another finger, still high. Then I
asked if she would do one of the other kids. I was hoping her monitor wasn't
working. I wanted to do Hannah since she was the closest in age but she
refused. Maddie was willing. Her result was 89. Oh Crap! Maybe he ate too much
sugar at nursery. Texted my friend. He ate only a few marshmallows, some chex
and some craisins. Shouldn't be causing a high reading. Freaking out has
started. Caroline is giving me a look. I call the Pediatrician's office.
Rattled off nonsense to the lady that answered. Turns out she wasn't a nurse
and didn't understand it. Said she would get the message to the nurse and she
would call me. She called right back, like I mean right back, which isn't a
good thing. I told her Grayson's symptoms and the high reading on his blood
glucose. She told me to take him up to Primary Children's Hospital right away.
At this point I was holding back the tears as best I could. I started packing
up a bag with some extra clothes for Grayson and I. I told Tanner to text Dave
who was hometeaching(The text said "Oose has to go to the children's place.
er. Primary". Caroline called my Mom to see if she could bring the kids to
their house for dinner. So Caroline loaded up the kids and we took Grayson to
the hospital. We took him to the main location rather than the one attached to
another hospital in Riverton thinking it would be best. Grayson napped a little
in the car. We finally made it there. I have to tell you it felt weird walking
into the ER with a kid that didn't look or act sick. We told the ladies why we
were there and got registered. We took our seats and tried to relax while we
waited. Kids around us seemed sicker. I wondered if they were wondering why we
were there with a healthy looking kid. We got called back really fast. They
came and poked him right away and then didn't tell us the results just said the
doctor would be in soon. One doctor came in and talked to us then an attending
Doctor came in and talked to us as well. Finally they realized he had already
been poked and went and got the results. Then the attending doctor said the
number "329" and confirmed he had Type 1 Diabetes. The tears started
to flow. The nurse was already ready with the tissues for me. The Doctor was
super sweet and compassionate. She let me know what a good job I had done by
catching it early. He was fortunately not suffering from any complications from
it getting too high or not caught soon enough.They let us know that Grayson
would be admitted and would stay for a day or two. Even though I pretty much
knew already it was so hard to have it confirmed. To realize how much was
changing for my baby boy, for our whole family. Eating and food
were always going to be more of a challenge from now on.
During all the waiting Grayson wasn't aloud any food. Finally they said
we could order him dinner and then they would give him a dose of insulin, his
first of many. We had to tell them how much of his dinner we thought he would
eat, We ended up being wrong. The little guy ended up eating it all. Halfway
through dinner his room was ready so we moved from the ER to his room on the
Children's Medical Unit floor. He finished his food and became this super happy
hyper little boy. He was the happiest I had seen him in awhile. And then it hit
me he had been cranky for a few weeks. Not himself. I referred to him as
a stinker a lot. And now I know why. Poor guy!
And that is how this whole journey started. We spent two days at the
hospital where the nurses, doctors and other educators helped us learn how to
take care of Grayson. It was hard trying to keep a two year old happy in the
hospital when he doesn't feel sick enough to just lay around. Luckily there was
an awesome playroom on our floor and we took Grayson there a couple times to
play. He loved it! They also let him paint a pumpkin which he thought was
awesome! We had some great nurses, our favorite was Shay. She was our nurse for
the day shift both days. She has a daughter close to Grayson's age so was very
understanding. Grayson really wanted some Doritos with his lunch but food
services said no because of his age so she went and got him some. Everyone was
really so nice and helpful. I called it the Disneyland of hospitals.
So we took the crash course on Diabetes and learned the basics. Little
by little they even had us taking over Grayson's care. They also had Dave and I
give each other shots(of saline) so we could feel what Grayson feels. It was
good because I realized it was just a pinch not bad at all. It does help
knowing that when giving my little man his shots.
*First night in a big boy bed
At home we were lucky to have plenty of support and help from
family and friends.We were so grateful for all the help Caroline, Jared & Jordyn and my friend Jenn did. It was so nice to know my kids were taken care
of. We also got lots of requests to help with meals and my friend Pearl brought
dinner in on Tuesday night. Can't tell you how nice it was to have a home cooked meal when we got home that night after eating hospital food since Sunday.
The kids all love Grayson so much! It was hard on all of them to
have this happen to him and have him away from home. Landon seemed to take it
the hardest. He and Grayson share a room and I think he really missed his
buddy. On Monday night I left Dave at the hospital and went home since I had an
early Doctors appointment Tuesday morning. Landon without even saying a word
followed me to Dave's car rather than going home with everyone else in my van
that Caroline was driving. I could just tell he was struggling with all of it.
Today marks three weeks since Grayson was diagnosed. It's crazy
how quickly it all becomes routine. There have been days I have cried and said
I don't have it in me to do this, that it's too hard but we've gotten through
those days and had some pretty good ones. On my lowest day when I was crying in
the school parking lot after Grayson had gone high then crashed super low and
wouldn't eat anything my friend Jennie magically appeared with a hug and some
encouragement. And really since that day it has been a lot better. There are
nights I worry about him going too low. Just two nights ago I made Dave check
him at midnight just to be safe. Unfortunately there are lots of worries that
go along with Diabetes and I'm a worrier in general, not a good combination. But Grayson is tough and handling it all like a champ!
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| Cheese! |
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| All naps were on Mom |
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| Brothers! |
And finally, YAY we are going home!!!
Since being home I've noticed that Grayson isn't as interested in watching TV. Before diagnosis he wanted to watch tv all day, every day. I did notice he was wanting more tv time but I wasn't sure what to make of it. He also didn't do the normal toddler mischievous things. The kid was just content to chill on the couch all day. Now I have to beg the kid to watch tv so I can take a shower. He is playing so much more and he is getting into everything. I'm loving having a happy little toddler that loves to explore and make big messes because it means he is feeling better.
Through this whole journey I am so grateful for my Heavenly Father. I have such a horrible memory and I know it was only through the Lord I was able to remember the symptoms of diabetes. My little man was spared the extra pains and troubles of a later diagnosis. I also feel Him in how we have been able to adjust so fast to this huge challenge. Nursing is not my thing and I know it, but somehow I am able to do what needs to be done for my little man. The first week or two were so hard but then all the sudden it clicked, the anxiety went away(for the most part) and things became easier. But don't be mistaken it's not easy. It's hard and its expensive and it's exhausting and it never goes away.
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