The story is kind of difficult to talk about, mainly because Max was showing a lot of symptoms that I didn't understand, so I didn't really notice them until they became severe. At the same time, it could have been much worse.
Medically speaking (as best I can, this is still really new to me), Max was experiencing Ketoacidosis, which is an EARLY indicator of DKA (Diabetic Ketoacidosis). DKA is much more serious, potentially deadly if not treated, and most people that are in DKA are in the ICU or worse. So as scary as this all was, we caught things early before it got really serious. Thank you, Jesus. He was looking out for him.
But before I get into all that, let me tell you how this all led up to Max's diagnosis.
Type 1 diabetes can seem to come out of nowhere, but it's pretty much predispositioned and all it takes is a trauma or an illness to set it off. After that, your life is not the way you knew it and you start a new one.
We won't ever know for sure what set off Max's diabetes, but I'm almost positive it was his illness last year of guttate psorisis, which is strep throat that causes an onset of psorisis. It was so bad that he needed light therapy. Psorisis is an autoimmune disease and T1D is caused by autoimmune diseases. So if you or your family has more than one autoimmune disease, it may not hurt to see if you have the marker for T1D.
For months, we've noticed Max "obsessing" about food. He says it started around Thanksgiving. People can walk around with type 1 diabetes for months and not know it. It is only when the pancreas finally runs out of insulin that you begin to experience symptoms.
With him being 14, we didn't think much of his hunger. We thought it was pretty normal and just tried to increase his food intake. I'm not very good at nutrition and making sure that everyone is getting a good intake, so I was blaming his hunger on this. I did try to do better but didn't worry very much about it at first.
Then he began to get very thirsty. This was closer to around Christmas. Again, didn't think much of it. Max has OCD and tends to obsess over things extremely easily. So again, we didn't pay much attention to the symptom.
Then in January, that's when we began to notice a very intense uprise both in hunger and thirst. There were days when he would be throwing a tantrum if we said no to a snack because he just literally had one, plus a huge meal. We thought this was a teenage fit, or an autism fit. (Sometimes it's hard to know the difference.) We have to always stay on top of the OCD because it causes so many problems and we have already experienced many obsessions with door locking, teeth brushing routines that take up to a half hour and door knob rattling. Once they get started, they are nearly impossible to stop. So for this reason, Dennis and I were very firm with Max, sometimes fobidding him to drink if we felt he had too much--especially when the excessive drinking led to many trips to the bathroom during the night.
Then one night when Dennis and Max were supposed to go to the comedy club (a Christian based one), Max wanted to use his gift card for Dairy Queen. Immediatley afterwards, he demanded water. And more water. And more water. When they drove to Minneapolis, Dennis had to pull over to a gas station so Max could pee and then drink more water, because when Dennis tried to put his foot down and say "no" to so much water, Max began to belligerent and emotional. Dennis then texted me: "Something is wrong. It took Max over 3 minutes to pee and he's still thirsty."
I had already had an appointment made with the doctor to try to figure this all out. I was worried because even though Max was literally eating practically nonstop, I could tell he lost weight. I could always see his ribs, but now they were sticking out in a way they hadn't before. I could see every little indent in his sternum. He was always pale and his eyes were sunken in to his head. He no longer looked normal.
Over the weekend, he threw up what looked like coffee grounds--a big indicator of ketoacidosis. But of course, we didn't know. We just figured it was a stomach bug or that maybe he was throwing up all that food his body didn't want. Except that there was no food in his vomit, which was weird.
On top of all this, Max complained of "shaky legs" or "tired feet" which I thought was flat feet. Like the hunger and thirst, the complaints of his "tired feet" got worse over the weeks. When Dennis brought him into the doctors, he had to help Max up the stairs because Max could barely climb them.
Again, we sound like terrible parents, I know. This is why it's hard to talk about. Every symptom that I have mentioned now sounds so obvious. But we had a reason for each one: teenage boy always hungry. OCD causing obsessions. Flat feet making legs achy. The only thing I can console myself with is that at least I made an appointment to see if everything was ok.
When Dennis talked about the symptoms over with the doctor, she immediately became alarmed. She checked his weight and he lost 10 pounds since his last visit. When Dennis texted me "she thinks it's diabetes", I brushed it off. Max didn't seem the type to have diabetes. But then, I was thinking type 2 diabetes, where people tend to be overweight (not all, but many.)
But then he let me know that his blood sugar was so high that they couldn't get a reading and that they needed to pack a bag and get to the hospital right away. When we got there, his blood sugar was 580. The doctors told us that it most likely had been hanging around 1000 for weeks, and dipping down around 300-400 in between meals.
The high blood sugar causes ketoacidosis, which is what I mentioned before. Ketoacidosis is when your body stops producing insulin and then your body starts breaking down fat to use as fuel. This causes a build up of acids in the body, which are called ketones. To get rid of it, the body pees it out, causing dehydration and extreme hunger, making you lose weight. If left untreated, it becomes DKA (diabetic ketoacidosis) which is life threatening.
The sobering thing about this is that Max can develop ketones any time he is sick or any time he has high blood sugar for too long. We have been sent home with ketone strips for Max to pee on so we can take an at-home analysis to keep track of any ketones.
There are so many scary things about diabetes. The more I learn, the scarier it gets. It's very easy to go into a dark place just thinking about it.
But the good news is that Max looks way better. Mom saw him today and couldn't believe how good he looked. His face is rosy and healthy looking again. His eyes are no longer sunken in. Although he's still tired, I would say he's gaining energy.
So while I won't say that everything is rosy and good, I will say that things are slowly getting better. And things are being cared for. When I think how close to death Max was, I can only give all credit to God for prompting us to get him checked out even when we weren't worried about anything serious--just thinking it was just autism and OCD.
And He somehow kept Max alive through it all. High blood sugars and everything, totally uncared for, while we kept feeding him high carb foods to finally get him full enough where he wouldn't be hungry anymore. God is good. And this is what I keep reminding myself every time I find myself sinking back into that dark place again.
God is good. All the time.
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