Elsie developed beautifully! She made all milestones on time and some were early! She rolled and crawled and cooed and boy did she grow! She was a healthy exclusively breastfed baby. She spent many hours with family and friends! She was showed and surrounded by love and our family was fully supported by everyone we knew! McKenzie stayed home and took care of sweet Elsie.
Sarah worked at Oaklawn Psychiatric Center and later moved on to work at IU Health Goshen Hospital. We moved in March 2013 to a 2 bedroom apartment as our small 1 bedroom home was no longer providing sufficient room for our family. We loved the new apartment. Hated sharing walls but Elsie was continuing to thrive.
Elsie came down with a virus around the middle to end of May 2013, her first real sickness. She kept getting irritable and cranky and not liking her usual activities. A round of antibiotics didn't do much to help.
Sarah lost her job at the hospital unexpectedly, she worked part time at a bakery - but it wasn't enough. McKenzie found a job at Keystone RV and everything changed for this family of three! McKenzie went from stay at home mom of 11 months, to sole provider for the family. Sarah went from working full-time and solely supporting this family for the last 7 years to stay at home mom and wife. This transition was terrifying for both McKenzie and Sarah.
Elsie seemed to be affected by the change as well. Elsie became more and more irritable, her energy level decreased tremendously, and her interest in usual things changed. Sarah started to think Elsie didn't like Sarah being home with her. Then Elsie started getting sick, vomiting, on a nightly basis. We were so worried. We tried to avoid unnecessary E.R. tests and made several visits to our family doctor. All symptoms pointed to teething, but that diagnosis didn't suffice for us.
Then the nurse came in to start an IV he mentioned her sugar was high and they wanted to flush it out. Sarah asked how high (she was a nurse aide and took some nursing school courses and knew a thing or two about blood sugar) he said it was 457! Sarah about fell off the hospital bed!
Keep in mind NORMAL blood sugar is between 70-120!
We asked why it would be so high? And the nurse said the doctor would be in to talk to us about it. But that he thinks she has diabetes. Never in our wildest dreams had we ever heard someone being diagnosed with diabetes before a year of age. Of course we NEVER thought this would happen to us!! We cried and Sarah made sure Amma was on her way down. This was all just before midnight on July 11th. Grandpa Danny came to the E.R. to give support.
We contacted our doctor and explained what was going on. He said he'd visit the next day at the children's hospital. We were transferred to Memorial Children's Hospital in South Bend shortly after midnight. Sarah rode the ambulance with Elsie and McKenzie met up with Amma at the apartment and drove up shortly after and met at the hospital.
We spent all of July 12th, July 13th (Elsie's first birthday) and most of July 14th in the pediatric ICU. Elsie fought an amazing fight! She smiled and was making nurses laugh! She was such a trooper! So many family visited in between naps - Elsie slept quite a bit from all the commotion.
We made it home and had to figure out this diabetes situation out for ourselves. We had an excellent diabetes educator Noreen, without her we couldn't be where we today.
Elsie was diagnosed 6 months ago, and now we are on an insulin pump and doing great! I'll be sharing some favorite and not so favorite moments in this blog. We are a family striving to fight against diabetes and end in a cure for our beautiful little fighter! Shes amazing and everyday is a new adventure with Elsie & diabetes!!
Take Care,
Sarah, McKenzie, & Elsie
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