So I haven't posted on here in a long time.. A lot has changed in our family since my last post when Reagan was born.. But I'll go into all of that in another post. One of the biggest things to happen in our family was on September 16, 2017, Bentley was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes..
It had been a rough week. Bentley was so irritable and nothing seemed to make him happy. He looked depressed and was just so unpleasant to be around. Nothing I did would make him happy. He had been peeing the bed again really bad for several weeks but I didn't really think much of it since he had just turned 4. I thought it was just normal regression.. He complained about being thirsty as well but really I didn't think much of it. But this unhappy child was not my normal boy.. I knew something had to be wrong. That morning we were getting ready for our church picnic and we were making a s'mores cake.. (had to be the most sugary thing ever huh??) I was talking to my husband who was working overtime that day and I was telling him that I thought something was wrong. I don't know why but diabetes crossed my mind. I have no idea why but it did. Well I had a glucose monitor at home from my pregnancy with Alexis (like 9 years expired lol) and so when I mentioned diabetes to Josh, he suggested I check his blood sugar..
This is all it said.. I didn't even know they could say that.. My heart stopped... I checked again.. Same thing... Then I thought, well it's expired.. So I checked myself.. 86... I knew... I didn't know much about diabetes except for what you hear about type 2.. I called his pediatrician. I knew it was bad and was trying to keep it together. He said that I needed to take him to the hospital and that he was likely a diabetic. He said not to go to our local hospital because they would not be able to treat him but to take him to a hospital down where Josh was working an hour away. I was bawling by this point. I called Josh and told him to meet us at the hospital. When we got there they checked him and their meter said "Hi" as well and they did blood work. Not long after they confirmed that he did have diabetes and that they'd need to transfer him to UVA Children's Hospital in Charlottesville, VA. His blood sugar was 569 and he was in DKA. This was another hour away. We had all 5 kids with us so our assistant pastor and his wife drove all the way to the hospital to pick up our 3 older girls so that they wouldn't have to go to the hospital with us for several days. Reagan and Josh went in the van while I rode with Bentley in the medical transport. He was so tired but said he was too scared to sleep. It was so heartbreaking. He eventually fell asleep during the hour ride down there. I was still scared and heartbroken for him but I still don't think I fully understood the severity of type 1 diabetes...
Once we arrived at the children's hospital, Josh and Reagan showed up. They had a bunch of doctors coming in and asking us questions and getting his IV's all hooked up. It was awful and he was scared. He also hadn't eaten since breakfast and was starving. He didn't get to eat anything until that night and that was the first time we had to carb count. At first we didn't have to worry about shots because they were giving him insulin through his IV but eventually we had to learn how to give him shots. They explained carb counting, corrections, dosing.. We had to speak to the diabetes specialists as well as other people to go over food and how it affects blood sugar. We were there three total days. During that time we were figuring out how much insulin he needed and how to manage his diabetes. He slowly went from that unhappy/grouchy boy he had been all week to our normal happy boy.
It's been just over 6 months since he was diagnosed. We are learning and adjusting to his disease. It's definitely a lot scarier than I ever imagined. I sleep less now than I did when I had a newborn. He is doing well with shots but struggles greatly with not being able to eat what he wants when he wants. The doctors explained to us at diagnosis that we need to let him be a kid. He can have what he wants, we just have to dose for it. In reality that is true, but we've also learned foods that make him go really high and I do try to persuade him to chose something else if he asks for those foods but if he really wants it, we just dose for it and accept that he'll go high for a little while. We are doing what we can. His A1C at diagnosis was 12.8. At his last appointment it was 7.6. So higher than they want but he also was sick twice during those three months and that affected it. He's getting a diabetic alert dog this winter but I'll make a whole separate post for that. Thank you for reading his story! For more day to day updates on Bentley you can visit his facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/bentleyalertdog/
