Hey everyone! First blog for me, and so please leave me any comments, questions, concerns so that I can figure this all out and be able to share my experiences as a type 1 diabetic! For this first blog I’ll go into the story of my diagnosis and share some things that I went through!
I grew up in a small town in southwest New Mexico called Silver City. I rode mtn bikes and horses with my parents. I raced BMX, and overall was a healthy kid. I became sick spring of 2001. Felt like a bad cold or the flu. I had been sick before, and 7 year old me didn’t think much of it other than my mom making me stay inside and not go play… Well, we went into the family doctor and was told what we expected: Bad Cold. My parents were advised to give me lots of ORANGE JUICE and rest. We would later find out that was a huge mistake. Went back home after the doctors and within the next couple days things got worse.
I started to drink almost a gallon of orange juice a day, and I stopped eating. I remember I could never get enough to drink and was peeing every 5-10 minutes. We would go get pizza once a week and I would usually get the personal pan peperoni, and would crush it. This is the one thing that made me realize something different was happening with me, because when we went to get pizza I tried to take a bit out of a slice and had no appetite. The days that followed were no better. At this point I was sleeping most of the day, and only getting up to drink and throw up. My parents started seeing how much weight I was losing. I was probably 70lbs soaking wet, and through the last couple weeks I was down into the 50s. We went back to the doctors, and they reasoned that it was probably mono. Again we were advised to have me drink a lot of fluids like juice, and eat Saltine crackers. My parents, being the badasses they are, decided to get a second opinion and a third doctors visit.
Even with all of my signs and symptoms, this doctor wasn’t really looking at other causes. My parents were researching other reasons for why their son was dwindling away right before their eyes, and came across Type 1 Diabetes. After this doctor tried to tell them, “Its probably some sort of viral infection”, my parents demanded them test for T1D. They didn’t even have a glucose meter in the office, and so after much skepticism they had me do a urinalysis and sent me home.
The following day my sister and I sat inside my dads truck in downtown silver City as my dad was helping out with the Tour de Gila bike race. My dad had a Motorola cell phone at the time and received a call that he told me went something like this, ” Mr. Robinson we need you to bring your son to the emergency room at Gila Regional Medical Center right away.” My dad came running to the vehicle grabbed my mom and we hauled ass to the hospital which was about 10 minutes away. As we arrived I had a nurse standing by the doors with a wheelchair which I was promptly set in and wheeled into a room where an IV was placed in my left hand, and a large box was brought out with a weird looking machine inside. I was poked on the finger with a square looking crayon that had a needle in it, and some of my blood was placed into this machine. Eventually the thing beeped and the doctor and nurses kind of gasped. Guess their glucose monitor read glucose levels of up to 800mg/dl, and mine wouldn’t register on the machine. After that the next couple days were a blur and I wasn’t completely sure what was going on, besides me getting poked with a bunch of needles. I had a really nice nurse that took care of me and would be right there every time I called.
I was told that I was type 1 diabetic which is an autoimmune disease where my body started and successfully killed the insulin producing cells in my body and that I would have this for life. The cause was unknown, and I needed to test my blood 5-8 times a day and to take insulin when my blood sugar was high and every time I ate a meal. We were directed to Tucson Arizona where a great pediatric endocrinologist worked and taught my parents and I the niddy griddy of diabetes and how crucial it was to maintain good blood sugar. I was sent home with a bunch of insulin, different needles, machines, and books and two terrified parents! haha
So there is the basic story of my Diagnosis guys. Hope you enjoyed or could relate to in some way even if you aren’t type 1! Thanks for reading, and leave me any comments suggestions below!
Cheers!
-Dillon