A few days ago our 8-year-old granddaughter was diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes, which is also known as juvenile onset diabetes. In retrospect, there were warning signs over the past few weeks but all could be easily attributed to other non-serious causes. Apparently, when the pancreas shuts down, it can fluctuate and may take a while before becoming a crisis. She had reached the crisis stage with a blood sugar level about 8 times higher than normal.
After spending several hours in the emergency room at our local rural hospital, she was taken 45 miles by ambulance to the next larger town to be flown to Sacramento as no hospitals north of there deal with paediatric diabetes. Fortunately it was caught early enough that it appears that the extremely elevated blood sugar levels and resulting ketoacidosis did no lasting damage.
After just a few days, she’s home now and learning to deal with her diabetes. This condition requires frequent finger pokes to check blood sugar levels and insulin injections after each meal and before bed. While this is a life changing condition, it is manageable and a lot of progress has been made in recent years.
Anyway, when starting this blog, I resolved to post 2-3 times a week. Obviously I’m a little behind and now you know why. For more information about juvenile onset diabetes, see the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation Internation website.
No comments:
Post a Comment