Adrienne is my 20 year old and is a junior at the University of Memphis. Three weeks ago, she was taking exams and remembers being extremely thirsty that week. She would down three bottled waters and it would not quench her thirst. When exams were over she mentioned that to me and the fact that she was going to the bathroom a whole lot. So, I asked her to check her blood and let's rule that out. Well, she checked and her blood glucose was 500. I'm afraid we didn't rule it out. I called Amanda's endocrinologist right away. I happened to have her cell phone number from a previous conversation about Amanda's blood work. I just jotted it down for future reference. Never dreamed I would need it so soon. Dr. Karabell was kind enough to answer my phone call even though she was with a patient. She asked me to check her ketones and call her back in 5 minutes. No ketones. I'm praising the Lord for that. You start getting into trouble when that happens. It was a very long 5 minutes. When I called her back she said to come in right away. We were seen fairly quickly. She gave Adrienne her first insulin shot with an insulin pen. She needs a shot twice a day at this point. She wants her on a pump as soon as possible. It just makes life much more manageable on the pump.
It's been over 2 weeks now since diagnosis. Adrienne is doing amazingly well. She has watched her sister for 7 years and has been involved in her care. The two of them are bonding like I've never seen before. That is the blessing part of this story. They have each other.
Our new challenge is what to do with Time. She has alerted for Adrienne once on her own. We haven't been sure if we should encourage that or not.
We have known since Adrienne was about 14 that she carried the antibody GAD for Type 1 Diabetes. During some routine blood work, her blood glucose that day was over 200. The doctor said that we need to check that out. I took her to the endocrinologist and they ran a test that would show if she carried the antibody for Type 1 and she did. At the time, the doc said that she would develop it in the next year. Well, the year came and went and then another and another. I decided that it was not going to happen.
Last summer after Adrienne's trip to Ecuador, she was very fatigued for a very long time. I started checking her blood sugars at random and found that she was running in the 200's again on occasion. Dr. Karabell checked her A1c which checks how your blood sugars are running for the past 3 months. It was a perfect 5.1. She said not to worry about diabetes; she does not have it. The Lord gave her another semester without diabetes. For that I am thankful. She finished her semester with 4 A's and 1 B and an Excellent portfolio for the graphic design department. For that I am thankful. She has 4 weeks before school starts to learn how to manage it for herself. For that I am thankful. And, she has a sister that can help her. For that I am thankful.
