So, the more I thought about it, the more inclined I became to share our diagnosis story.  Everyone affected by this disease has a Dx story.  I'll share ours, but you can post a comment about your own too!

In June of 2010, my husband and I noticed a few things.  Alison was drinking a lot more water than she had before.  We chalked that up to it being hot and her going outside with her Daddy everyday to play.  Then she started to leak through her diaper at night.  Not a little leak here and there, but so much so that we had to change her sheets almost daily.  We tried everything, doubling up on diapers, giving her less to drink before bed; nothing seemed to help.

Alison had always been independent but she started to get really clingy.  When the lethargy hit, we started to think that she was coming down with something.

Then it hit us full on.  The morning of July 5th seemed normal to me; I felt horrible, but I was pregnant with my second child and not known to have easy pregnancies.  I got to work, went into my cubicle and instantly the phone started to ring.  It was my husband saying that Alison was vomiting, acting bizarrely and getting major shakes on and off.  He was going to take her to our peds office to see what might be up.

Shortly after that I got another call.  The doctor who shares space with ours was filling in for him and she had tried to get Alison to pee for her so that she could check for ketones.  Ali was not cooperative in that she was so dehydrated from throwing up that she had no fluids left to provide.

I met my husband and Alison on my way to the hospital.  We were seen so quickly it scared me.  Alison was still sick to her stomach and was convulsing on and off.  She was just a shell of the girl we knew and loved.  This frightened me to my very core.

Within half and hour we knew that she had Type 1 Diabetes.  We didn't know what that meant, but we knew it was serious.  The first few days in hospital felt like an eternity.   What stands out most clearly to me is the kindness of the staff we encountered.  These are the people who are still part of our Endo team today.

It took a while for us to deal with Ali's new life.  My husband wanted to research Diabetes until his fingers were raw from typing.  I wanted to avoid the subject as much as possible.  Dealing with it only brought me to tears.  I ate my way through November, December and all the way into May.  That's when I decided to see a therapist to deal with the state that our life had fallen into.

Our sadness, anger, resentment and despair has fallen away, slowly but surely.  We still have moments of sadness and there will always be fear, but we, as a family, led by the smallest of heroes, decided to not only soldier on, but to make the very best of the situation that we now live in.