I don’t remember those first weeks as a timeline.
I remember them as survival mode.
Chaos constantly moving while I stayed calm in front of my daughter.
Everything overlapping.
Everything happening faster than I could process.
Explaining the same situation over and over to family.
Answering questions I didn’t have answers to.
Learning injections.
Learning carb counts.
Learning Dexcom.
Working.
Parenting.
Trying not to fall apart.
I had no feelings.
And all the feelings.
At the exact same time.
The only way I can describe it is crisis triage.
Not an emergency.
But absolutely an emergency.
You don’t know how big of an emergency it is yet because you don’t fully understand the disorder.
And that ignorance is terrifying.
Because your ignorance can put your child in danger before you even know which decisions matter.
The Van Moment That Is Imprinted In Me
We had just left her first appointment.
We were told to keep life normal.
So we did.
We went to Wendy’s.
I repeated in my head:
Feed her like you normally would.
Two blocks from picking up her younger brother, Dexcom alarms started screaming.
224
289
350
HIGH.
And HIGH doesn’t mean “a little high.”
It means over 400.
My mom said highs after eating are normal.
But my gut said no.
I reached across the van and poked her finger for the first time ever.
424
I remember staring at the number.
Looking at my husband.
He shrugged and shook his head.
We both didn’t know what to do.
Frantically digging through paperwork.
Calling the doctor.
Leaving a message.
No education.
No instructions.
Just:
“Use the Lantus. The pen will handle it in the background. We’ll see you in a few days.”
It was an emergency.
But I didn’t know how much of an emergency.
And that is one of the most terrifying places a parent can sit.
Learning While Already Responsible
Instead of being educated in a hospital setting…
With diabetes educators walking us through everything…
I was learning from Google.
From ChatGPT.
From friends of friends.
From family.
Three days after diagnosis I was back at work because bills don’t stop.
Trying to act normal.
While managing something that could turn life-threatening.
Trying to absorb information fast enough to insulate my child from the trauma of it.
Her life will never be the same.
But that doesn’t mean her life ended.
I refused to let her see the stress it put on me.
Or her dad.
Or her siblings.
I carried it.
And The Pharmacy And The Money
Hundreds of dollars in prescriptions.
No explanations.
Just totals.
$420.
My husband somehow got it down to $260 and I don’t even remember how because my brain was fried.
Questions about prescriptions we didn’t understand.
No one available to answer them.
It was weeks before Christmas.
Buying medical supplies.
Trying to figure out insurance.
Trying to keep life normal for all our kids.
And my husband’s checks were about to be short because the endo decided we needed two separate days of education instead of one — and he didn’t have PTO to cover it.
It felt like everything was happening at once.
Because it was.
And The Tech Didn’t Work
As if the medical learning curve wasn’t enough, the Dexcom added another layer.
Her phone was technically compatible.
Except when we set it up, it said we were out of the country.
We were not out of the country.
The educator shrugged and said it wasn’t a big deal because we had the receiver.
What we didn’t know — because no one explained it clearly — was that the receiver only works within a certain distance.
You cannot sit at work and watch it from miles away.
Our phones were too old for the follow app.
So that same night —
after Wendy’s,
after the van,
after the pharmacy,
after dance,
after throwing together a “diabetes bag” based on vibes and advice from non-doctors —
it’s 11pm and I’m trying to solve a technology problem I don’t understand.
Old phones.
My mom’s phone.
My laptop.
Anything.
Nothing worked.
And I had to send her to school without the ability to monitor her remotely.
Because I didn’t know what I didn’t know.
School Was The Breaking Point
The male nurse from the office started rattling off ratios and charts I didn’t understand.
Told me to write things down.
Said he might be able to contact the school nurse before 4pm and will call me right back.
That call never came.
The next morning I walked her into school apologizing for how ignorant I felt.
The school nurse hadn’t received paperwork.
She couldn’t stay.
I had to walk her back out.
Sat in my car and called the doctor’s office and everything I had bottled up since Saturday night came out at once.
Anger.
Fear.
Overwhelm.
Exhaustion.
I yelled.
I cried.
I apologized for yelling.
They apologized.
The nurses were incredible.
They walked me through everything.
Got paperwork sent.
They Listened.
And that was the first time I realized nothing about my daughter’s case had been handled like a typical diagnosis.
The Anger That Still Lives In Me
Some of this was avoidable.
Decisions were made about my child’s health based on someone’s “gut.”
Without urgency.
Without full education.
Without proper support.
And I was left playing catch-up in a situation where daily decisions can mean life or death.
As much as people use humor to survive diabetes — and we do — it is still serious.
And when you don’t know what you don’t know…
you don’t even realize the danger you’re navigating.
That is what makes the fiercest version of me show up.
Not loud for drama.
Loud because my child deserved better information.
Faster education.
Clear guidance.
Those Weeks Changed Me
They were a blur.
But also the most detailed memories of my life.
Dexcom alarms.
Finger pokes.
Parking lots.
Pharmacy counters.
School offices.
Google searches at 2am.
Explaining everything over and over again to family who meant well but had more questions than we had answers for.
I was in survival mode.
What No One Explains
You aren’t just learning a condition.
You’re learning:
how to think differently
how to calculate constantly
how to stay calm when you aren’t calm
how to advocate
how to trust your instincts over someone else’s “gut”
You are learning how to parent in a completely new way.
And those first weeks?
They change you.
Not because you want to be different.
Because you have to be.
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