December 24, 2009.
That date is Micah’s diaversary, a term people who have (or love someone with) type 1 diabetes call the date they were diagnosed. It was also, for me, the beginning of a long period of mourning for the life we had–for the life Micah had–before all the needles, test strips, and insulin.
In all my years, I’d never awoken on a Christmas Eve morning in a state of anxiety. The giddy anticipation and joy I’d felt every other year was clouded over because of the symptoms our two-year-old son, Micah, had been exhibiting. Something was direly wrong. I had an ominous feeling that a storm was brewing, and, unlike the blizzard that was forecast for our county this day, our family would not be able to retreat from what was coming.
I had called the children’s clinic the previous day, giving a nurse a rundown of troubling signs. Micah had wandered around the house for the last week sallow-cheeked and droopy-eyed. “Waah, waah (water),” he’d say as he reached toward the refrigerator door. He couldn’t seem to quench an insatiable thirst; he was lethargic, losing weight, and waking up in wet sheets every morning. The nurse was calm and didn’t say much, just told me to bring a urine sample in as soon as possible. I hung up without asking any questions, just went to work on what she’d told me to do.
How hard could it be to get a toddler to pee in a cup?
Later, a nurse would tell me we could have put cotton balls in his diaper and squeezed them out to get the sample. To this day I don’t know why she didn’t tell me this over the phone; I felt a little slow not figuring that out for myself. But then again, had I understood the gravity of the situation, I probably would have racked my brain a little harder.
After almost twenty-four hours, Todd (my husband) was the one who finally got what we needed. Then off to the clinic he went, Micah in tow. The wind had picked up and the snow was starting to fall sideways, lifting and swirling, sticking to our living room windows.
I felt a strange sense of relief mixed with foreboding. “Dear God,” I prayed, “please get them safely to the clinic…and then please bring them back again.”
I waited at home with our eleven-year-old daughter, Sammi, whose Christmas spirit was not at all hampered. I hadn’t expressed to her my deep concern about Micah’s symptoms; I didn’t want to spoil the holiday for her. Thankfully, there were tasks I could complete to keep my anxiety at bay. I tended to the dirty dishes and the unwrapped presents, still praying for safety…for no diagnosis.
Then the phone.
An urgent voice told me Micah needed to be admitted to the hospital as soon as possible. The urine sample had shown that his blood sugar level was extremely high. The pediatrician would tell me later that it was almost 1000mg/dL (milligrams per deciliter), five or six times higher than what was normal for a young child. He must think me a horrible mother for allowing it to get that high, I thought. It truly was a miracle we got him to the hospital in time.
I could hear my heart pounding as I hung up, then called Todd’s cell phone. “Are you still at the clinic?” I asked, thinking they would have kept them there until the results were known.
“No, we’re on our way home,” he said, like he was doing exactly what was expected.
“You need to turn around,” I commanded. “The nurse called and said Micah needs to be admitted. His blood sugar is off the charts! Sammi and I will come as soon as we can.”
Through the kitchen window, I could see the snow swirling franticly making it hard to see our neighbor’s house across our driveway. The wind was making that whipping sound that all blizzards do. There was no way we were venturing out in this. Todd insisted we stay home and come tomorrow when the wind died down and the roads had been cleared. I knew he was more than capable of handling the situation, and I felt peace and gratitude that Micah would have him there as an advocate and comforter.
As I lay in bed that night, I had no idea how much our lives were about to change. I didn’t realize that this would be the last day I would ever be free from thinking about blood sugar numbers. It would be the last day I would not have to count carbohydrates and calculate insulin amounts. It would be the last night I wouldn’t have to set an alarm for two a.m. to make sure Micah’s blood sugar was not too low or too high. There would be so much more to learn and do, but on this night I was mercifully free from the overwhelm of it all.
Tomorrow would be Christmas Day, and the blizzard would subside. But this other storm, this harsh interruption to Micah’s life and to our family’s way of living, was here to stay. There would be no cozy shelter to hunker down in, no waiting it out. We had already started to walk through it–and there was no turning back.