Brooklyn's Story

May 12 2002.  Mother’s Day.  It started out like so many other days, but it ended so very different than I ever imagined.  I knew I had a little girl (2 ½ years old) who didn’t feel well, but I didn’t know just how sick she was.  In fact she had been, what I considered, mildly sick off and on for about 2 weeks.  So I’ll start there.

Brooklyn had a few bouts of been sick, throwing up during the night, but she would be fine the next day.  No fever, no cold, no runny nose, no complaints of ear pain.  Everything seemed to be fine, except every couple of nights she would get sick, and then feel better.  Looking back I think I should have maybe wondered about her being allergic to something she was eating, but it wasn’t happening that much.  And again no hives or other signs of an allergy.  So we carried on. 

Then she started wetting the bed.  Like the sheets were completely soaked as if she hadn’t gone all day and waited until bedtime to flood her bed.  Unfortunately we had just switched to cheap diapers since she was two and didn’t really wet at night so much anymore – I thought it was the diapers and her just drinking too much so close to bedtime. Switched to heavy duty diapers and limited her drinks at night.

Then there was the day when a friend and I had walked over the church for a Tae Bo workout.  We got there and Brooklyn was acting up so I put her in a timeout.  I went to check on her a few minutes later and she ignored me.  I thought ‘Wow, this 2 year old is mad at me for putting her in time out!’  My friend went out to talk to her and came back saying she thought she looked dazed. She asked me if I had given her any medicine that morning.  I hadn’t.  However, by the time we got back home she seemed fine. I brushed it off.

Then Mother’s Day.  We headed to church with a drowsy kid, she slept on my shoulder off and on for the whole 3 hours.  Being that it was Mother’s Day we had invited the missionaries and another family over to BBQ.  Brooklyn slept from the time we got home from church until the meal was almost over.  I woke her to eat and she was very lethargic.  Still no fever or other signs of illness I usually looked for.  But I knew something was wrong, was this a weird flu?  I called my Mom to wish her a Happy Mother’s day and of course all the kids had to take a turn talking to grandma.  When Brooklyn talked to her my mom also knew something was wrong.  Brooklyn was slurring her words and hardly said anything.

Next I called the health nurse hotline.  After answering a thousand questions she calmly directed me to head to Tripler Army Medical Center.  She even said that she was going to call ahead and tell them to expect us.  I thought how nice; it should have tipped me off to the seriousness of the situation.

My friend Deanna offered to stay with the kids while Paul and I packed up Brooklyn and we headed the 45 minute drive to the hospital.

The next few hours were tough, the next few days were draining.

It was the first time I had ever taken a child to the ER and got immediate attention.  They checked her blood sugar the moment we walked in.

1350

She should have been in a coma. Normal is 80-120.  Everything else becomes a blur.  She’s put on a bed and suddenly there are 15 doctors and nurses in a room that only fit 5.  Paul is by her head trying to calm her.  Brooklyn is screaming as person after person draws blood for this and that. One trying to get an IV started in dehydrated veins.  Questions being asked, I’m trying to concentrate on the questions and forming answers. I looked over and I see Paul go white.  One of the people notice to, he tells us to change places.  But I don’t do any better.  I feel myself about to faint.  I remember talking to Brooklyn telling her it would be okay, then telling myself to knock it off, get a grip, and hold on.  Stroking her cheek I keep saying it’s okay and then a deep breath, and tell myself again to hold on; like a broken record I kept that up until things began to calm down.  They got the IV started, they got all the blood they needed and my exhausted baby girl fell asleep. 

They confirmed the diagnoses of type 1 juvenile diabetes.  Oh gosh, I didn’t know what to think.  I was too tired to think.  While we waited for a room upstairs Paul sat by Brooklyn’s side and I walked outside for fresh air and to call my mom.  I knew she would be waiting for my call.  It was then in the warm Hawaiian night breeze that I got my first chance to break down and cry.

They moved her up to the NICU.  When the nurses told us she’d probably sleep for quite some time, and we knew she would be there for at least a week – we headed for home to talk, shower and pack our bags for an extended stay.  We were told that there would be a week of training and both of us would have to be present.  Although we both headed back that night; for the rest of the week we took turns one of us going home each night and one of us staying there. 

The next week we had a crash course in the body and how it works, and a crash course in nutrition. We gave an orange a shot, then moved to giving each other a saline shot.  Graduation would be giving Brooklyn her shots.  Being able to count carbs.  Converting that to the right amount of insulin, both long and short acting.  Timing everything just right to prevent highs and lows.

I don’t we had a second for anything other than learning that week.  I know that we didn’t see much of the rest of the kids our other 3 daughters and 2 foster kids.  But I knew they were in very capable hands with good friends of ours.  2 or 3 different families stepped up and took over a part of our life that we just didn’t have time for that week.  I know for both Paul and I our brains were exhausted, and trying to comprehend all we were learning was tough.  I kept thinking, ‘what if I mess up? What if I don’t get this right?  This is a life we are talking about here’.  I’m grateful to the wonderful friends we had to watch our back. 

I was grateful to also know that our Father in Heaven also had our back.  You see about the time this all started, just prior to when Brooklyn first started showing signs of being sick, I also began to feel my grandfather near me.  My grandfather had passed away a few years earlier from complications to juvenile diabetes.  One particular evening I remember very clearly I distinctly felt him near.  Close enough that I had to call my mom and tell her.  I found out that my SIL had just headed to the hospital to deliver a baby and we mused over the idea that he was close by bringing a sweet new spirit to earth.  However, while in the hospital with Brooklyn I began to realize that he was there for me, for my comfort.  This was confirmed to me when we had our first low blood sugar seizure scare almost 6 months later.  Again just prior to and after I know the veil was thin.      

We got to take our Brooklyn home the following Sunday the 19^th of May.  Daddy’s birthday!

Looking back over the few weeks prior to the diagnoses there were warning signs we didn’t realize were there: 

She was 2 and when she would ask for a drink she would literally guzzle the whole cup and sometimes ask for more.  My husband commented on that he liked getting her drinks – it wasn’t a waste of time – with the others girls, they would ask for a drink only to take a sip and be done. *without insulin the high blood sugars were causing her body to dehydrate*

She was eating everything on her plate and her older sisters.  I remember her eating a whole PB and J and then taking Emma’s and eating hers (Emma is one year older then Brooklyn). Yet I also remember telling my mom that same week that my little girl was already losing her baby fat.  Her cute little chubby cheeks were disappearing. *without insulin her body was basically starving, food wasn’t able to get into her blood stream and so it was going out as waste as fast as it was going in*.

Always hungry, always thirsty, tummy aches, flooding the bed at night, losing weight spaced out or lethargic – all are typical signs of diabetes. 

I think we got her to the ER just in time.