check yourself...

I have been thinking about ways to share our diabetic experiences with anyone who will listen really, and  I thought hey...I'll make a youtube video of a few things! So, you can check out my video about checking yourself AND about late night lows @ tinyurl.com/25treehouselane {link is also in top right corner} .

When we came home from the  hospital with Sydney, after she had been diagnosed, we gathered our girls around the kitchen so we could use our new meters to check all of our children. We felt the need to check them all because we really had NO idea where this came from! NO ONE on either sides of her family has had Type 1 diabetes. We were baffled. We wanted to just make sure that we wee all cleared. We checked Emily first. the meter said HI which usually means the number is too high for the meter to read. the meters go up to 600. Andy and i looked at each other with a shocked confused this cant be happening look that i won't ever ever forget. We tried it again. It still said HI. My heart sank. Andy immediately went to panic overdrive. This COULDN'T be happening...could it? We JUST got out of the hospital where we watched our oldest daughter suffer in severe ketoacidosis, we learned a WHOLE new way of living and how to take care of our 8 year old daughter with a new disease. Please keep in mind we had a 3 year old and a 3 month old at this time as well, and that our 3 month old was put in the NICU a few hours after birth for a few days. To say we were exhausted was an understatement. We then checked Drew. Her number was okay. We then checked out tiny baby girl. She was okay. We looked at each other, I took a deep breathe and said we needed to pack a bag, don't forget the phone charger, lets read scriptures, say our prayers and i would take the drive to the ER with Emily.

Thats where my dad came to give a blessing while we waited to hear the news...Emily was ALSO diabetic. We were transported to the childrens hospital in town. When we walked in, the nurses had the craziest looks on their faces. They, too, couldn't belive we were back. That just days before, we brought out oldest daughter in and as we were taking care of one child, our childs body was going down hill.

 We spent a couple days there, again, and when we came home our new lives began. 

We now check each member of our family every so often. We don't know where this came from. We DO know that Type 1 can be diagnosed at any age. We check to be safe. We are SO extremely lucky that we checked Emily when we did. She didn't have to suffer the pain and sadness that Sydney did and we didn't have as much fear because she didn't go into SKA. 

SO. If you can...check yourself. :)