Love for Lily

Welcome to our JDRF Walk to Cure Diabetes Team Page!  

We are going to be walking as a family this year in our very 1st Walk to Cure Diabetes!  We plan to make this an annual tradition in hopes to find a cure and to show our support for Lily who was diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes on April 7th 2012, when she was 4 1/2 years old.  Here is her story...

Thursday morning Lily ate a pretty large breakfast, 2 bowls of Life cereal (ironic) and a banana.  Little did we know that was to be her last good meal before everything changed.  She didn't really eat anything else Thursday or Friday so we figured that she was coming down with something because that is how she is when she is sick, she just won't eat.  We offered her McDonalds, donuts for breakfast, etc. but she ate nothing.  She said she didn't feel good and really didn't get off of the couch much.  She was so thirsty though.  She drank lots of water and had to go to the bathroom a lot, which I had heard something about before but couldn't place my finger on it.  She just seemed really ill.  Late Friday night I told my husband (Nick) that if she wasn't feeling a little better by Saturday, which happen to be the day before Easter, that I was taking her in.  Well, early Saturday morning when I went to check on her she looked really bad.  She was pale, her skin was sunken in and she wouldn't get up off the couch at all.  She looked like she was dying.  I was very worried for my little girl so I brought her straight into the hospital.  They admitted her right away and asked me what had been going on with her.  I gave them a rundown on the last few days and they told me they thought she had a bladder infection.  I was relieved, a bladder infection is very treatable.  A nurse then weighed her, she was 30.5 pounds!  One of the nurses came to talk to me and asked me what she weighed before all this started.  I told her at her 4 year check-up, 6 months ago, she weighed about 37 pounds.  She looked at me and said "they don't lose that much weight in 2 days."  I was mortified!  What is this nurse trying to say?  I did everything I could to try to convince/bribe Lily to eat.  I just couldn't believe what I thought this nurse was accusing me of.  I would never hurt or starve any of my kids!  She then tested Lily's blood sugar and said "exactly what I thought."  I asked her what she was talking about.  She told me Lily's blood sugar was high.  Okay...  What does that mean?  She told me that infections can cause a person's blood sugar to rise but it's usually only in the 200-300s so Lily probably had diabetes but I would have to wait a little bit for an official diagnosis.  I asked her what Lily's blood sugar was, she told me it was higher than the meter could go so they had to send it down to the lab to find out and then she left.  That meter went up to 600.  I later found out that her blood sugar was 618 and she was officially diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes and had to stay in the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit due to Diabetic Ketoacidosis.  Her nurses, or princesses as she called them, gave her intravenus fluids and insulin via a pediatric drip.  They told me that they didn't usually use the pediatric drips for insulin because most of the kids they diagnosed with diabetes were older and used the larger ones.  After starting her treatment they weighed her again and she gained back 5 pounds in 24 hours!  Her blood sugar kept going up and down though and they were having a hard time getting it stable because she was so little.  She ended up being in the hospital for 3 days.  Needless to say we didn't have Easter Sunday last year, we had Easter Tuesday.  They then decided it was best to get her to a Pediatric Endocrinoloist to try to get her sugars regulated.  When we left the hospital on Monday her blood sugars were still in the 400s.  That following week we spent many hours driving to the cities and going through a diabetic education crash course to learn how to take care of our daughter.  It's a lot of work, a lot of money, a lot of time and many sleepness nights but when you look at this brave little girl and see her smile, it makes you feel prilveledged to be the one who is entrusted with her care.

My one wish since that day has been for someone to find a true cure for Diabetes and hopefully one day JDRF will grant that wish!

Please help us, help them...

Thank you!

~Jennifer~

AKA wife/mom/pancreas