Katie's Story

There were times the past year that I literally felt that we were living in a tv show.  It was very hard to piece all of the symptoms together to get the Type 1 Diabetes diagnosis.  Let me back up a bit.

I'm Fee.  I'm in my early 40s and it's my daughter Katie who has type 1 diabetes.  I have three kids.  Katie, Mike and AnnaGrace.  AnnaGrace is our wonder from China and made me laugh when she told us that she was so glad she wasn't related to us (when we were testing Mike for T1 Diabetes).  I've been married almost 20 years to the love of my life, Kev.  Getting back to Katie...

Our Zoo Crew- Ages 18, 15 and 10 Fall 2012- Katie- Already Sick

We were working on exercise for me...you could say she appointed herself my trainer for working out. I highly recommend having your child train you.  They are relentless...I suspect as payback for the groundings or chores or something.  But she took a certain glee in monitoring my food and exercise.  She would hound me into working out.  While I'm not thin..she is.  Always has been.  
Keep in mind this child was on the verge of adulthood and we all knew it.  I'm 18 was a frequent refrain in our home!

She started having symptoms early in her senior year of high school.  She'd text me from school and complain of blurry vision or tingling in her hands/feet.  But it wasn't tied to anything in our minds.  We noticed she was drinking a lot more water and eating a ton.  But with all the working out we were doing- she was always doing up to an hour while I only lasted 20-30 min so eating more seemed reasonable to us.

It wasn't until she started getting yeast infections of all things that I started to piece things together.  I'm sorry to admit we thought she might be a hypochondriac- all these odd symptoms...  When I look back now it seems SO clear....but man when you are living it daily it is not clear at all.  In June I finally looked back at all the infections and realized we had removed what we thought was the problem but she was still having them.  I started piecing other things together.  Like the fact that she had dropped probably 30 lbs in 3 or 4 months.  Maybe more.  I know I bought her clothes during summer because she was bigger (which started the health kick).  And then after school started I needed to replace size 11/13's with 5's.  She was only in those until xmas break and then one day she was walking past me and I said....."Hey didn't we get rid of all those big clothes?"  She answered that we had but these were the NEW shorts.  Um that's not right. 

Once we sat down with Kev- I said we needed to think about what it could be.  Katie is a google champ- just like her dad....but had come up with pinworm or cancer.  Since none of us were getting infections I doubted it.  I thought about it and I remember thinking- use your science degree for this...yeast like what?  SUGAR...ok if the yeast are living on sugar - where is it coming from?  We have Type 2 diabetes on both sides of my family as well as on Kev's mom's side. 

I looked at Kev and said..should we have her tested for diabetes?  He thought about it for the longest time and said yes. We had also discussed checking her thyroid since we have issues on both sides.  FINALLY it felt like we were getting to the bottom of the mystery.  I called our doctor and made an appointment to discuss.

Getting the call from the doctor, I can remember answering the phone and just knowing something was wrong.  And yet I was *still* shocked to hear the words- 'she has diabetes' coming out of her mouth.  I wrote down everything and promised to get her to the office in a few minutes for another blood test.  And then I went upstairs to talk to my husband.  He knew something was wrong just by looking at my face.  I said it as calmly as I could and I remember feeling like I was floating above my body and watching the scene.  I ended with "Well type 1 diabetes is the better one, right?" and my husband saying "No it's much worse".  I think when I look back..when I first mentioned diabetes to him- he KNEW it was going to be type 1 and was hoping it wasn't.

I was in la-la land because I was worrying more about cancers of the thyroid and things of that nature.  When I first heard diabetes I admit I was pretty cavalier about it..like it's not a big deal.  But it is.  It's scary as heck and explains a lot of things that had been going on with her.  From attitude (nasty mood swings) to lack of interest in school (a 5.0 gpa straight A student- not caring about her grades) to general sleepiness and just not feeling good.  It's astounding to me that she was still able to exercise.  Really????

Little did I know.  It's been two weeks since she was diagnosed and life as we know it has changed and will change drastically.  

Katie at Graduation- May 2013- Age 18

Date of Diagnosis - June 21, 2013