7 Year Mark

Seven years ago I took my 19 month old baby to the Dr.'s office to once again see what what going on with her. She was losing weight, had a horrible diaper rash for the last month, was very lathargic and going through wet diapers like crazy.

My mother in law thought she might have a bladder infection, so that was the main reason for going......maybe that was it.......all this sickness the last month and a half had to be a bladder infection.

While we were there, the nurse came in and was going to do a finger poke to check her blood sugars.....none of the other Dr.'s did before and we were finally with her primary physician.
When the machine came back with a 595 reading, the nurse said it couldn't be right, maybe she used the adult machine instead of the kid one, she'd be right back. And she was. Said we needed to go downstairs to the lab right away and do a blood draw......cut in line and come right back upstairs. So we did.

The blood draw came back 626. They were calling an ambulance to take us to the hospital right away. In the meantime they HAD to get an IV into her to prevent any more dehydration. After blowing her veins twice, they decided to wait for the EMT's to do it. Once the EMT's got to the Dr.'s office they decided not to try again because she was having a hard time, so we got her to eat ice chips on the ride to the hospital. We rode to the hospital in the ambulance with Jessi on top of me, because otherwise she wouldn't calm down. (fine with me, just felt bad for the EMT's having to lift me as well) And just as a precaution, they set her up on oxygen because she was turning blue from the ice chips.

All the while my husband is leaving work and calling the family and making arrangements for my older daughter to stay somewhere else until the next day when we thought it would be better to see her sister then. (what a mess that was, but it worked out)

After my husband calmed down upon seeing Jessi hooked up to oxygen, he actually bonded with my Mom(big deal here people).

Jessi's vein was blown one more time and 30 min. later they had a vein in her hand hooked up to the IV's and dripping Insulin as well as something for the dehydration. That rash disappeared the next day!

Husband and Mom left for dinner together...I wasn't budging. Baby fell asleep in my arms and I cried for what seemed like ages until the best nurse came in and comforted me......never saw her for the next 2 days and I'm sure she was an angel now that I think about it.

After becoming aware of the other children on the floor and their MAJOR issues, diabetes didn't seem so bad. Perspective is amazing, isn't it?

Cut to 7 years later and Jessi is LIVING with diabetes.

That's what I'm thankful for.