Shortly after Graysons 1st birthday, our ever smiling toddler was going through some unpleasant changes. Literally over night he went from a playfully charming to downright miserable. Screaming for hours, banging his head around. Then his sleeping patterns began changing. He was listless a lot, napping more and becoming increasingly lethargic. The final symptom was HUGE increase in water consumption. At first I was so proud and showered him with praise everytime he emptied a sippy cup or bottle of water. After all, I know kids don't always like water and he LOVED it. Then he started the excessive urination, peeing through diapers at an alarming rate. We went up 2 sizes and started using overnight diapers during the day, and they would be full in a matter of a few hours. Soon he was choosing water over food. The very first article that came up on my search pertaining to a 1 year old consuming excessive water was, "viral onset type 1 diabetes." Grayson was hospitalized 4 months prior for a nasty respiratory virus. He was in the hospital for 4 days. I was scared but not convinced. After all, I knew of no one in my family with diabetes, nor Steves. So just to be thorough, I called my mother. I asked if there was any history, she told me no, not that she knew of, and wanted to know why I was inquiring, I told her my concerns. She told me to stay off of google and that my son was just being a toddler, toddlers sleep, have temper tantrum, and are fickle with foods. Perhaps I was just acting like THAT mom, that first time mom worrying about everything. But then with in a few days of my inquiries, things got worse. He had spit up a few times and I was shocked, he stopped spitting up 6 months ago! Then i realized it was mostly water. It was the day before easter Friday March 25. We went to crossgates to get eater pictures taken. They would be the last pictures taken before we were tossed into the world of diabetes. We had dinner at the mall after our pictures and we watched our son drink three 5oz sippy cups full of water BACK TO BACK and not even bother with his charished mac & cheese. That night he vomited water, but he had no fever, no diarrhea, or any other symptoms of being sick, so we made the decision to bring him to the pediatrician the following morning, a Saturday. We had a 10am appointment. Grayson had not eaten yet that morning, he was cranky. I told the pediatrician my suspicions and what I had read about. The weekend pediatrician (not our regular ped) seemed quite unconvinced that diabetes could be the problem after I frantically spewed my google findings. To humor me I'm sure, he finger stuck grayson and left the room for 20 min. It felt like an hour. When he retuned he told us that he has contacted Albany Med Emergency Room and that they will be expecting us, and that we needed to take our son there immediately. His resting blood sugar was 388. We fed him half a peanut butter and jelly sandwich with the pediatricians permission because he was so hungry and we knew it was going to be a very long day. By the time we were seen in the ER his blood sugar was in the 500's. I will never forget that moment. That pit in my stomach like 1000 pins deflated your heart and it sunk so far down in side you. I had an idea of what we had in store for us, but there was so SO much more. What our little boy would have to endure for the rest of his life.... 6 days in albany med PICU was just the tip of this diabetic iceberg.
