MY T1D DIAGNOSIS
Hi my name is Lola, I am 13 years old and yes I have a dead pancreas (GROSS!). I wish I could say that I woke up one day feeling really sick and rushed straight to the hospital to find out that I had type 1 diabetes but NO! Now that I have been diagnosed and have heard all of the symptoms over and over again, I feel like a complete idiot!
Yes drinking 12 bottles of water a day, losing 15 pounds, going to the bathroom every 2 hours all night long and not being able to get up a flight of stairs is completely normal.
WEAK
I don’t know the exact moment that I started feeling weak because it was so gradual. I remember telling my parents that I hated school because I didn’t want to have to climb the stairs to the third floor. There were a couple of times where I literally sat on the bottom step praying for the day to be over so that I could go home and rest. I even texted my mom once to come and pick me up because I couldn’t physically get to my next class. I know what you are thinking, if you were that bad why didn’t your parents take you to the doctor? Honestly, there was a bad flu going around and I figured that I could rest and it would go away in a couple of days. Little did I know that my body was burning fat for energy which was producing ketones that could potentially kill me!
THIRSTY
So I just got Invisalign which is a very important factor because my orthodontist said that the only drink I could have without taking it out, brushing my teeth and putting it back in was…you guessed it water. This was a perfectly good explanation for why I was gradually drinking more and more of it. Looking back I was waking up tired every day which made me aware of the insane amount of water I HAD TO DRINK or I felt like I was seriously GOING TO DIE! I woke up every night to go to the bathroom and my parents finally told me to stop drinking anything between dinner and bedtime. My first thought was you might as well tell me to stop breathing because that is impossible! I went back to the same routine (or so I thought) until I found myself sneaking bottles of water up to my room as if I were sneaking candy, and hiding the empties in my closet or under my bed. The lightbulb finally went off when I drank a full 2L container of water without stopping (which I couldn’t do now if you paid me a million dollars) and I still felt thirsty!
WEIGHT LOSS
Did you know that I am a competitive dancer? I love dance and I try not to miss a class, even when I am not feeling good. I will never forget this one particular night at my studio because my dance teacher asked me if I had been eating enough lately. She wanted me to tell her what I had for dinner that night and I didn’t understand why. I could feel my friends eyes on me holding back laughter since they had all just watched me stuff my face with snacks between classes as usual. When I got home that night my mom immediately ordered me to take off my sweatshirt, upset because the studio had called and suggested that I might have an eating disorder or diabetes. PANIC was the look on my mom’s face when she slowly realized what was hiding under my baggy clothes. You could literally count every bone jetting out from my thin, greyish skin and all I could think about was how hungry (and incredibly thirsty) I was.
MY DIAGNOSIS
Little did I know that this was the last night that I would ever go to bed without giving myself insulin. I made myself a snack, sat down on the couch and was checking Instagram as I do every night before heading up to bed. My mom had made a doctors appointment which was in a couple of days but we decided to go to a walk in clinic in the morning if I still didn’t feel good. I had no idea that I was going to sleep in full ketoacidosis (DKA) which is life threatening and that my family could wake up in the morning and find me in a coma.
I was scrolling through my feed and came across a post from a girl at school who had started a campaign called Sugardrop Sweetwear to bring awareness to type 1 diabetes. I loved her sweatshirts and asked my mom if I could buy one (all the kids had them) and for some reason I decided to pull up her bio.
As I read her symptoms I literally started to shake. Extreme thirst, weakness, weight loss, hunger, exhaustion, constantly having to go to the bathroom…my world was about to change!
“I have diabetes!” I remember yelling it out and crying not really knowing what that meant, but sure that I had it. My parents were trying to console me by saying that I shouldn’t jump to any conclusions but we decided not to wait for the appointment and to go to the walk in first thing in the morning.
The walk in clinic was an experience I will never forget. When the doctor walked in and asked how I was doing? I answered by telling him that I hadn’t been feeling good for a while. I told him that I was always thirsty and felt tired because I was up all night going to the bathroom. He looked at my mom and said “she has diabetes”. My mom got mad and asked how he could make such a serious diagnosis without doing any tests. He handed me a small bottle and told me to go to the bathroom and give them a sample. Which was easy since I was dying to go to the bathroom as usual. I was so scared but did what he said. When I returned my mom hugged me as we heard chaos break out in the hall. Someone said to call an ambulance while another yelled for a wheelchair and I felt relief at the thought of another person being in more serious condition.Then our door flung open and they sat ME in the wheelchair. What? Why? Wait a second?
CHEO
The hospital was a frenzy of tests and specialists that lasted for hours. Nobody actually told us what was going on but I had a team of specialists taking care of me so I knew that I was safe. I remember hearing my dad ask if I had diabetes, but nobody would confirm it for some reason. At around 11pm we all realized that I hadn’t eaten since breakfast and I was starving. When we asked if I could have some food they said that I would have to take some insulin first. By that time I had 2 IV’s and at least 4 blood tests so one more needle in order to get some food was nothing. I asked if I could go home and the doctor said that if my mom or dad could show them that they could give me a needle I could go. They explained that I would need insulin again in the morning before I ate breakfast and then I would have to return to the hospital. My dad said “another needle?” and the doctor responded “Sir, your daughter will need a needle every time she eats for the rest of her life”.
At that moment I said goodbye to the life I knew, and hello to my new world with type 1 diabetes. I was instantly ready to take this on, but I had no idea the enormity of what that meant.
