Looking Back: Dx 2

Looking Back posts are my effort to journal the diabetes times

that have gone before the start of this blog.

Roo, age 14

I thought our lives had changed forever on a Thursday.  And they had.  Then came Sunday.  Sunday was three days after my younger daughter, Pink, had been diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes.  A day we were joining together as a family to show our support for Pink.  A day we all were going to check our blood sugar just like Pink had had to do already so many times in the last three days. 

Pinks older sister, Roo, did not want to have anything to do with this.  Roo does not do well with needles, shots, blood or even talk about blood or the internal workings of the human body.  With a little lot of encouragement pressure Roo agreed to do a blood sugar check.  Poor thing. She must have hovered the lancing device over her finger for 5 minutes.  She declined my offer to do it for her.  With what I can only call a true act of bravery she pricked her finger, applied the blood drop to the strip, 5..4..3..2..1..

435 or something

The world stopped.

My vision started to narrow.  Not really narrow.  It wasn't black.  The area in my peripheral vision seemed to solidify.  It retained all its color and imagery.  Like taking a still picture from a video.  All thought processes seemed to halt.  I remember hearing the air rushing into my nostrils from my breathing. 

sur·re·al  /səˈriəl, -ˈril/ [suh-ree-uhl, -reel]
adjective
having the disorienting, hallucinatory quality of a dream

check 

I then proceeded to go through a sort of abbreviated, out of order, pseudo version of the 5 stages of grief stuffed in the following 10 minutes.

Denial:  "That can't be right." This can't be happening.  Did I see that right?  What just happened?  This can't be happening.  That can't be right.

Bargaining:  "Roo, you know how you were eating that Nutrigrain bar with your fingers.  We should wash your hands and recheck."  Yeah, that had to be it.  She flat out refused.  Please, this can't be happening.  Please, let this be a sick joke.

Anger:  This is some sick joke!  WTF!!

Acceptance:  Like a zombie I went to the phone to call the on-call endo.  I got a call right back from the nurse practitioner that was on duty for that weekend.  I told him what happened and he asked me when my other daughter was diagnosed...

Depression:  "Thursday," my voice cracking slightly. Don't lose it now.  You've got to hold it together just a little longer.

"ZOINKS!" he answered. 

He said "Zoinks."  Bless his heart.  I liked him immediately.  What more could he say?  It made me think of Scooby Doo right at that second.  Which is better than freaking out any day.  Is it even mentally possible to freak out and think of Scooby Doo at the same time?  He advised us to check Roo's wake-up number and call them back the next day.

I went to talk to Roo but none of us really wanted to think about what was happening.  I told her about the check in the morning and we would probably be going to the clinic.  I think I hugged her.  I HOPE I hugged her.  Certainly I hugged her!  I can't remember much after talking to the nurse practitioner.

I cried.

She woke up in the 200s and when I called the clinic they already knew about us and had an appointment already made.  She was diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes that day, Monday, October 18, 2010.  Four days after Pink.