A Mother's Perspective: Polishing Off Juvenile Diabetes

A Cure Is Within Our Reach

It was seven days after my daughter Kendra's first birthday. She had started getting sick right after her party. Of course my husband and I, along with her doctors, thought it was just a stomach bug that had been going around. So, I was told to keep an eye on her. As the week wore on, she only got worse. She hadn’t smiled in four days and when we would get on the floor to play with her, she would just lie down. I took her in to see the doctor who did chest x-rays (there was a case of pneumonia going around her daycare) which came back clear, so they drew some blood and took a urine sample. Her sugars came back in the 700's with very high levels of ketones. We were ambulanced to the emergency room and from there were sent to Pediatric ICU where we spent the next two days. She finally smiled at us the morning of the second day. After two more days in the hospital, we were released.

It's been nearly a year now since she was diagnosed. She's happy now. She knows "poke" and "shot" and she picks the finger for each blood check...and will occasionally do it herself. At two years old, she should be choosing what color crayon to use, not what finger to draw blood from. Children should not be faced with such choices, and I firmly believe that a cure is within our reach.