The Diagnosis...

From what we can remember Alivia's symptoms really started showing about 2 months ago. She'd been potty trained for over a year and all of the sudden she started wetting the bed and having accidents during the day and whenever we in the car. She also started drinking a TON of water and anything else she could get her hands on, she even started "stealing" other peoples drinks and chugging then down! About 2 weeks ago I called the advise nurse at our clinic and told her about this, she thought maybe she had a bladder infection and the front desk scheduled me for May 29Th to see the Dr. I knew it wasn't a bladder infection and because of a good friend of mine who's son has type 1 I planned on asking her Dr. to check her for diabetes. Sadly she didn't make it to that appt before becoming REALLY sick. On Sunday May 17th we noticed she had lost her appetite and she became really tired. By Tuesday she started throwing up, her heart was racing and she was breathing really hard...so I called the advice nurse back with the new symptoms, she told me to give her sips of sugared soda and call back in a few hours, which I did. This time I told her she kept the soda down but was still really lethargic, she told me to keep up on the soda and let her "sleep it off". She continued throwing up through out the night and first thing in the morning I called the advice nurse back and told her I wanted to see the dr NOW! I put her in the car for the 20 minute drive to the clinic, she slept the whole time and was having a really hard time breathing, I really wanted to pull over and call an ambulance but I knew I could get her there faster. We made it to the clinic and waiting in the waiting room for a good 10-15 minutes...no rush to them, she just has a little stomach bug. The nurse called her back and weighted her...I was so shocked to see 27pounds!...she lost 7 pounds in a month! The dr came back and I went over the symptoms again and brought to his attention the weight loss. He decided she needed an IV and sent us over to the hospital. He said if she perked up we could go home by the afternoon if not we'd need to stay over night. We got up to our room at Southwest and the first thing the nurse asked was if they checked her glucose level, I told her no and told her about wanting to get her tested because of the bed wetting. She assured me the dr would test her today. They got her IV started and she continued sleeping. About an hour later the nurse came back in and told me my suspicions about diabetes was correct and her blood sugar was at 583! She said they would be moving her down to the emergency room and a critical care transport ambulance from Legacy Emanuel Children's Hospital would be coming to get her and take her to the ICU there. Down in the ER the dr told me that not only were her glucose levels high but that her Keytones were at 6! And she had Ketoacidosis which is a serious condition that can lead to diabetic coma. They started her on insulin and we waited for the transport team. We spent about 24 hours in ICU before we started seeing her improve. We were moved into a regular room and the learning process began. We met with educators constantly and set up a food plan and shot schedule for her. After 4 days in the hospital we finally felt comfortable enough to take her home with us!