Our Story

It was one our favourite times of year - December 2015- Christmas - days where you can cosy up together on the sofa under the blanket with hot chocolate and watch our favourite family films,read our annual Christmas tales, where you can loose yourself in the moment,for Santa is about to make your kids faces gleam with joy and excitement. As a parent you cherish those moments for it gives you that 'warm fuzzy' feeling inside just to see them happy without a care in the world. 

We had booked to visit the winter wonderland in London making the obligatory visit to Santa and soak up the traditional Christmas atmosphere. It was a brilliant day, we had taken the pushchair as Oliver was still only small and we decided we  didn't want to hear the usual toddler whinging - "mummy,mummy, carry,carry". We stood in the queue for the 'Magical ice kingdom'. It was brilliant and both kids were so impressed ....... for Oliver this lasted all of 5 minutes, he became cold and very grumpy. At this time I found myself looking around seeing that Grace was excited ( not moaning at least) and even all other toddlers were running around enjoying the experience. Before i knew it we were having a full blown toddler tantrum in the middle of some very large crowds with the usual on lookers probably thinking - can you not just make your child behave.Still we continued on eventually coming to the end, we went to warm ourselves up outside with the free ( not so warm) hand warmers they give out at the exit. From then on the rest of the day with Oliver followed with lots of ups and downs, he'd become tired and grumpy and then he would suddenly find some stores of energy- something we put down to terrible twos being at its peak. 

The next few days were difficult, all Oliver wanted to do was lay on the sofa, we thought that he was coming down with the latest viral infection out there. This time there wasn't any temperature just generally irritable and tired, one of those times where you love them to pieces but keep thinking surely its bedtime now as it becomes a draining day and quite frankly you feel like you need just 5 minutes to regain some sanity! Over the next few days Oliver had started to have a few toilet accidents and complain of a tummy ache. Definitely thought something was wrong and what with the hectic time of trying to get organised for Christmas and working part time we put it down to maybe a urine infection. 

So on 22nd December, off we went to the doctors the next morning, by this point we pretty much had to drag Oliver behind us, I remember looking at him - he wasn't very responsive - sort of a dazed look and as white as the fluffy whites in the sky. I started to really, really worry but still convinced it was a urine infection and wanted to be seen by the doctors and leave with some antibiotics to make him all better, as quickly as possible (because that is what doctors do right?!). Little did I know what was about to happen next, and that all of the events in the few days before had been signs of just the start of our life long journey. 

We were called in by the doctor who initially thought the same - a urine infection. But he said lets do a urine sample to check before giving out any antibiotics. Oliver was so well behaved and just went along with everything he was asked to do. The doctor tested the urine and looked at me - the look on his face was an almost I am sorry expression, i could already tell something wasn't as expected. He sat down and explained that there were Ketone's in his urine and that he needed to do a blood sugar test which consisted of a prick to the finger. This didn't sound nice on a 2 year old but we knew it needed to be done so went along with it and surprisingly Oliver didn't put up a fight but just sat there. The reading came out as 30.2 - the normal blood sugar level should be between 4-7mmol! At this point the doctor acted very quickly and said he couldn't believe Oliver was still marginally coping,he didn't call an ambulance but we needed to drive straight to A&E for him to be seen urgently. He said we think he has diabetes and his condition could change very quickly so drive straight there. 

At that stage my mouth dried up and all my thoughts were just on the practicalities of how we get to the hospital and arrange daddy to meet us there and for someone to take Grace ( as it was school holidays). I just didn't have time to register what he actually had just told me- they think hes got diabetes?!- no don't be silly, it cant be that. 

We got to A&E and were seen straight away, Oliver had to have blood tests and more finger prick tests of which all seemed to happen slowly so I was sat thinking ok so it cant be anything serious otherwise we would know about it by now. Oliver became very distressed even though there was lots of lovely things in the waiting area - they had even got a huge sack of presents and every child that was seen in A&E received a present. I thought that was lovely. His behaviour had turned and he started becoming a little violent - something id never seen before, he was over tired and hadn't eaten since breakfast. They had asked me to not feed him until certain results had came back from the blood tests. Little did I know that Oliver was experiencing the fatigue and anger as a sign of high blood sugar. He had another tantrum in A&E to the point no one could calm him down, he knocked their Christmas tree over and kicked and hit things until he eventually fell asleep. 

Stuart had just arrived - he had trouble leaving work - his boss had turned around to him with the comment - 'its only possible diabetes - its not like its life or death'. 

Well actually as the day went on we found out that that swooping statement couldnt have been much further from the truth. The doctors came along with the words - 'Im really sorry, I wish I had some better news but Oliver is Type one Diabetic.'I didn't know where to begin- there were so many thoughts going through my head- What do we do now, what does this actually mean, ok so I can just give him insulin like once a day, I have failed as a parent. The doctors had said we had been lucky as so many of these cases end up with the child in DKA and end up high level dependency or even intensive care or worse. I was thankful that it hadn't come to that but reality was that maybe if it hadn't have been 3 days before Christmas we may not have visited the doctors soon enough, but i cant dwell on the what ifs. 

We were admitted to hospital as we were told we needed to stay in to make sure Oliver's blood sugar levels were stabilised and to teach us how now to manage Oliver's medical care. I have a phobia of needles, this was not a good start. I didn't see how on earth I was going to be able to inject my own son!? And then i was told that this had to happen with every time he ate. Knowing full well that kids snack several times a day at the age of 2, my mind completely blocked it out. It felt like a nightmare - he's my baby boy, I couldn't possibly do that to him. 

The harsh reality was something we soon understood, if we don't then we wont have our little Oliver anymore. This is what keeps us going today, we as parents will do anything for our children to keep them smiling and enjoy a happy and healthy life. We all have our ups and our downs but we have to try and keep strong and fight back against the challenges we are faced with, if we cannot do this then we will find that there is support in others around and that we just have to ask and not be afraid. 

We are now 18 months into our journey and have decided we are ready to share some of our thoughts about managing type one.