Life is Worth It

December 28th, 2013....March 3rd, 2015.....April 5th, 2018
13.7....7.7....12.4

A child...a teenager...an adult.

In severe DKA....caught early....misdiagnosed as Type 2.

Type 1 doesn't care.

Whether it is a sudden onset or a slow one, inevitably the pancreas won't work right and artificial insulin will be necessary.

My husband was originally diagnosed as Type 2 in 2011.  He struggled to have good BG readings with a constant change in the different kinds of pills he was taking.  He watched his diet.  Exercise was difficult but he did his best.  No one ever checked his autoantibodies...not once.  I mean he was older and overweight so people made assumptions.  All of his other diseases are autoimmune.  After our youngest was diagnosed T1 I started campaigning that he should look into checking whether he was as well.  Our family doc was pretty clueless about LADA. Latent autoimmune diabetes of adults.  Then older son was diagnosed with T1.  But still no one checked.  My husband started having some pretty serious issues, swelling of extremities, neuropathy in his feet, vision issues, and more pill prescriptions.  He also was more and more susceptible to long lasting infections.  Finally he talked with his doc about seeing a specialist and getting the testing done.  She made an appointment for him to see an internal specialist and they drew labs.  The labs never came back!  No clue what happened to those but he went to the specialist on March 22nd, had more labs drawn on the 23rd, and started insulin the evening of the 23rd.  He started on what is called a sliding scale and is so outdated.  He struggled to bring numbers below 200, had high ketones that took days to clear, issues with doing shots....a miserable experience.  His new doc was aware we have two children with Type 1.  I made numerous calls talking to them as well.  A little over a week ago we finally got him switched to a carb to insulin ratio which works sooooo much better.  We are still making adjustments but he is starting to feel better.  The swelling has even gone down and his feet feel a little better.  And we have had lower numbers!  This isn't easy by any means but especially for someone who is permanently disabled with mobility issues.  One of the struggles is he can't do some of his own shots...so I help.  We did get pens after a couple of days as syringes and vials were not going to work for him at all.  Pens are better.  His doc has already said that if his labs came back Type 1 (which the specialists all felt that it would) she would like to have him on a  Dexcom.  So Thursday hubby called the office to see what his labs were.  The nurse on the phone was awful...."everything looks fine except your A1c is 12.4...you really need to get that down...we like to see a lower A1c....you need to work on that..,that is really high!"  Of course it is high, no insulin will do that to you.  Finally got her to inform on the specific labs...oh your GAD is high. And there it is...autoimmune diabetes.  So here we are...three Type 1s.  Three on insulin.  Numbers, numbers, numbers.....but we got this.  And life is worth it.