Welcome to your "new normal"

When God first gave me the inkling that my time in the gym was up, He did so in quite a dramatic fashion. When my Little Bit was 18 months old, I noticed some symptoms of type one diabetes. Remember me mentioning the MCAT? I read a lot and am fairly medically astute (considering I didn't follow the path I'd originally chosen for my life). So, Ainsley's personality change (oh she was awful all of a sudden!), frequent urination, and insatiable thirst really had my mommy radar kick into overdrive. I mentioned it to my mom, who is a type 2 diabetic, that perhaps we should do a quick fingerstick on Ainsley. That wasn't well received. :) I believe the phrase was "We are NOT making the baby bleed because you're paranoid." OK... I admit, I can be dramatic, sometimes. So, I let it go.

Less than a week later, while driving home from the gym, I called my mom who was watching Ainsley to see how the afternoon had gone. She informed me that Ainsley had wet through her diaper, but that her jeans had been thrown in the dryer and all was well. Now, let me tell you a bit about my Mama. LOL She feels that God put her on this earth to take care of that grandbaby. In fact, I think she's still miffed that Aaron and I didn't offer to sign over all rights to my child when she was born. By this, I mean, she changes a diaper roughly every 15 minutes (I'm not kidding). So, there was no way Ainsley had had a diaper on long enough to warrant her jeans getting wet. I demanded that she test Ainsley's blood sugar with her home meter. She grumbled but complied. The meter read "hi" which in the OneTouch world is a blood sugar of over 600. (A normal person's run from about 80 - 120, I believe)

I'm pretty sure I broke some land speed records getting to my mom's place to get Ainsley and back out to the Children's hospital 45 minutes away. Sadly, my instincts had proven right. My baby was type one diabetic. Now, the blessing in this is that we caught it very early. I thank God so much for that because, although people don't seem to realize it, diabetes is DEADLY.

We're not talking chubby kids who have unhealthy diets. Type 1 diabetes is an autoimmune disorder in which the body mistakenly attacks the pancreas like it's a virus and damages it to the point where it can't do its job and supply the body with insulin-- which, if you don't know, is required for life. Type 2 is something different altogether and it irks me to this day that people don't realize that the diseases have nothing in common but their name. I blame the general need to over simplify EVERYTHING. But, I digress...

Ainsley was quickly admitted to the hospital and given... Get this... 1 unit of fast acting insulin and one unit of old school demon insulin called NPH. Do you know how much a unit is? Let's take a drop of water, shall we... It's about half of that. That bitty little amount of insulin dropped Ainsley's blood sugar from 587 (in triage) down to 63 within 3 hours. I sat in her hospital room in shock. How could my perfect little princess have an incurable disease? It just didn't make sense to me. That kinda stuff happened to other people. Not us! Aaron had run home to get Ainsley and me some clothes... Ainsley had given up on fighting her IV and was sleeping... And I was sitting there praying to God that this was all some insane mistake. I wasn't even crying, because... Come on. Seriously? My kid wasn't sick... Look how cute she is!

The med student who we'd met in the ER came up to check on us. I asked if if she was SURE that my baby had diabetes. She looked at me for a second and then started crying and said, "Yes. I'm so sorry." Which released the flood gates. I bawled. I'm pretty sure if I could have found some sackcloth and ashes on the peds floor of the hospital, I would have done it up right. It felt like my heart had been ripped from my chest. The poor little med student retreated after she gave me a hug and I did was any self respecting parent does. I crawled into the bed with my angel and hugged her tight and cried some more.

We were in the hospital for 2½ days. Because we'd caught Ainsley's symptoms early (here I am kicking myself because I knew almost a week prior), the endocrinologist told me that Ainsley would not have even had a hospital stay had it not been a Friday night. I'm grateful for that hospital stay, though. It gave me and Aaron time to cope with her diagnosis and learn to fake a level of "OK-ness" with it and all it entailed.

We came home, though... And I researched my fanny off, trying to learn what I could about diabetes in such a young child. My googling led me to www.childrenwithdiabetes.com which turned out to be a lifesaver for me. I met people who had been living this life for years and are OK with it. They told me that we would settle into what they called "a new normal".

A new normal? Right... Have you ever seen a child under the age of 2 have low blood sugar? They can't TELL you what's wrong, so there's either a serious shaking fit (terrifying to see) or else they just try to go to sleep. Bad part about that is... If you don't catch it, there's that possibility they won't wake back up. Luckily, Ainsley's never been one of those kids who likes her sleep. So, if she tried to have a nap, out came the meter and nine times out of ten, she was low. Other bad things can happen from blood sugar being too low or too high... Seizures, vomiting, comas... I praise God we've only had the puking once and have not experienced any others. How on EARTH do you get used to that??

It's been a shade over 7 months, now. Ainsley's blood sugar readings bounced around at the 400 mark for a month or so after diagnosis... We changed insulins (remember me calling NPH demon-insulin? That was the first stuff to go)... She was still running higher than I'd like... I researched some more... Hey! Insulin pumps! That sounded promising. The endo informed us that they don't pump with babies.

...right. So, Ainsley got herself a little pink insulin pump about 3½ months into diagnosis (what can I say? I'm persuasive... ;) ) and now, her blood sugar hovers in the 100s, sometimes low 200s. Which makes us all happy.

Remember me mentioning God was nudging me to leave the gym and be at home? Well, Ainsley was always home with me during the day and only stayed with Grandmama for the 4 hours 3 days a week Mama worked... At our last endo appointment, our CDE (certified diabetes educator) pointed out that Ainsley had great numbers during the day, but her dinner-time numbers were usually a good bit higher. Turns out Grandmama and PawPaw have a really hard time telling the Princess no.

That stung, I've got to admit. Ainsley had nice safe numbers as long as she was with me. As soon as my attention went to other people's kids (AKA my gymnasts)... It took a downward turn. Not an unsafe turn... My mom's not irresponsible... But, the numbers definitely creeped back into territory I'd rather avoid. Eye opening, huh? But... Perhaps not enough, as I was still working.

I wish I could say "so I quit and we lived happily ever after", but I'm not to that point in getting you caught up just yet. But, I CAN say that the "new normal" I was told about has finally hit. A newcomer to the world of T1D joined the CWD chat the other night. He's in Alabama and his son was recently diagnosed... And you know what I said?

"I know it's SO hard right now. And I'm sorry. But... In time, it just becomes life. You WILL settle into a 'new normal' and fingersticks and shots... Pretty soon they're as routine as getting dressed in the morning."

Wow. I guess we settled into our "new normal" without me even realizing it. I was so surprised that those words had come from my keyboard-- and even more surprised that I genuinely meant them. Glory to God for giving me peace with this disease... And for giving me friends who've been there and are coping just fine.

Stay tuned for more on my journey towards God's plan (if it's any consolation-- I DO get there eventually!)...