Dear Diabetes

Dear Diabetes,

On this date, November 8th, 3 years ago in 2009 you came barreling into my daughters life.  Actually, I'm pretty sure you came into her life awhile before that, but it was on this day, 3 years ago that we found out you were here, and here to stay. 

We've fought the good fight for 3 years, we'll keep on fighting forever if we have to.

 

I will never forget that day, looking down at my little girl so tired and weak, sleeping in her daddy's lap in a church pew, looking like a bag of bones, while I was up on the stand participating in the Primary program.   I will never forget telling my husband, "I'm taking her to the ER, right now" and marveling at the fact that he didn't even try to tell me it would be okay to wait until tomorrow morning when the doctor was in.  I will never forget how she just laid there in that big hospital bed and was too weak to fight off the needle stealing the blood from her arm.  Soon after someone came and told me she had Diabetes, I had to wait a good hour and a half after that to call Brian, he was still at church with no cell phone.  I will never forget the doctors telling me that she was in bad shape and they couldn't keep her at our local hospital, they were afraid she'd go into coma or have a heart attack, they said she had to be flown to Phoenix.  I will never forget them strapping her to a travel gurney and loading her into that helicopter.  Thank the Lord the let me fly down with her, my one and only unforgettable helicopter ride was anything but enjoyable.  I will never forget sitting in the PICU with Kortnie and crying at the site of 7 different tubes of stuff going into her IV. I will always be forever grateful that Brian didn't get there until the next afternoon, by then we were out of the PICU and in a regular room, Kortnie looked so much better, he won't have to live with that frightening image in his head.  I will never forget those 5 days we spent in the hospital, Kortnie, Brian, and I, away from our other kids, missing them like crazy, and scared of how much our lives were changing.  I will never forget the fear, the anger, the fright, the despair, and the confusion I felt. 

 

 I don't know what Kortnie remembers of that time, because I am afraid to ask her.  She does say that you, dear diabetes, you suck.

 

3 years with Type 1 Diabetes, Kortnie added 'It sucks!'

 

 

The other day, we were at Walmart which is right across the street from the hospital.  A helicopter took off, likely flying someone to Phoenix, Brian and I stood in the parking lot watching that helicopter fly away, I said a prayer for whoever was in there.  I looked at Brian watching that helicopter and he told me, "that makes me sad", I told him it made me sad too.  Every time I hear a helicopter fly over my house, I get scared that something has happened to Kortnie at school and that helicopter is going to pick her up.  I can't shake it, it's been 3 years and I can't shake the fear.

 

You know what though, dear diabetes, you have changed us, all of us, and maybe, just maybe, some of those changes are okay.  We eat a little healthier, we've met so many wonderful people, we've made friends in real life, and friends in our computers, we've learned so much, we've been able to teach.  Kortnie is strong, really strong, you have made her extra strong.  You have also made her better at math.  You have given us compassion too.   You aren't winning and you never will.  We will continue to fight, to live, and to strive to advocate and teach, and to look for a cure. 

 

Kortnie and her girls from the Aztec Cabin at D-Camp

 

Kortnie and Sugar at the JDRF Walk

 

 

Kortnie at the JDRF Walk to Cure Diabetes 2012, fundraising for a cure.

 

 

 

Don't get me wrong, I hate you, and I try not to hate anything, but I really do hate you, I would kick you to the curb, or take you from Kortnie anytime.  I'll keep the stuff you've given us though. 

 

Today we celebrate, 3 years of kicking your ass.  You still scare me, you still suck, you will still try to take over our lives, but we won't let you, you won't beat us, we'll keep fighting, forever.  You haven't just invaded Kortnie's life, but you've invaded my home, the lives of my family, you mess with one of us, you mess with all of us.  We've made beating you a family affair, with all of us working together, you don't have a chance. 

A 3 year D-Aversary celebration ice cream cone. Yes, she can eat that!

 

Graham and Stasia say it sucks too.

Watch out diabetes, we've got our eye on you!

 



Sincerely,
Kortnie's Family

 

 

 

Day 8 in the Wego NHBPM, the prompt was Write a letter to your Health.

 

 

Kortnie's Diabetes Fact of the day

 

3 years today, living with Type 1 Diabetes
11,000 finger sticks
1,260 syringe injections
320 site changes
16 doctor visits

14 blood draws
5 days in the hospital
2 eye dialations
1urgent care visit
1 ER visit
1 helicopter ride
All because of Type 1 Diabetes
 That's only 3 years, she is only 8 years old, she needs a cure.



 

 



 

 

 



#NHBPM Day 3 ~JDRF Walk

Today we are attending the JDRF Walk to Cure Diabetes.  Our walk is in Tempe at Tempe Town Lake (A city adjacent to Phoenix, AZ).  This will be our third year attending the walk.  This weekend is also the 3 year anniversary of Kortnie's diagnosis with Type 1 Diabetes.   Every year we walk under the team name Kortnie's Krusaders, you can still donate to our walk team through the end of the year, JDRF is one of the leading charities that is working to find a cure for Type 1 Diabetes, as well as working on improving the lives of those living with this chronic illness.  If you'd like to donate to our walk team or learn more click here.

The above photo collage is made up of pictures we took at the 2011 walk.  We always enjoy the walk, it's a fun day.  Our walk always has a pumpkin painting booth which is a hit with my kids, we usually just do the 1.5 mile fun walk instead of the 5k.  There are tons of booths that Kortnie likes to visit.  She visits the Animas booth and sees what kind of swag she can score for her pump, last year she got a new screen protector and matching purple skins for her pump and meter/remote!  She likes to visit the booths for different blood glucose meters, last year she got some cool meter skin sticker things for her Accu-Check meter, and a tealish blue skin for her Freestyle meter.  Old Orchard juice had a booth and was giving out full size bottles of their new carb smart juices, I think we scored like 4 or 5 juices and a bunch of $1.00 off coupons.  There was a face painting booth last year too, and tons of other cool stuff.  They also serve breakfast and lunch.  It's nice to be surrounded by other families who get it, everywhere you look you can seem someone checking heir blood sugar, wearing an insulin pump, or giving themselves a shot.  You can see mothers giving their children juice boxes or other fast acting glucose to bring up a low.  It's a feeling of same-same that is wonderful for Kortnie and for me.  Even my other kids, just knowing they are surrounded by families like ours.  I literally spend the morning teary eyed.  Tears of love, acceptance, sorrow, and gratitude.  The feeling I have at the walk are unlike anything else I've experienced before, they are hard to explain, the best way I can figure to explain it, is that there is a warmth in my heart.  I'm sad to see how many people there are that share this disease with us, but also it feels good to know we are not alone. 

I'm pre-writing this post, since we'll be out of town this weekend.  It's a big weekend for us.  Kortnie's got her quarterly Endocrinologist visit and A1C check on Friday (yesterday), we drive around 180 miles to take her to see her doctor every 3 months.  We'll stay overnight and attend the walk on Saturday.  We also plan on doing some shopping for winter school clothes and shoes as well as hitting stores like Sam's Club, Costco, and Trader Joe's.

Today's writing prompts were "I don't know about this but I'd like to...." or "post about a conversation you've had with your doctor"  I couldn't really think of anything to say about either of those prompts, I figured I'd save the alternate prompts for later, and didn't want to skip a day since it would be so easy to pre-write this post and talk about the JDRF walk instead.

Diabetes Fact of the Day

JDRF Walks are held at over 200 locations across the country and are managed by local JDRF Chapters. Participants can walk as individuals, or join a team (which can be started by a family, company or any group of people). JDRF’s Walk to Cure program raised $86 million in 2011 and had close to 900,000 participants.  To find a walk near you click here or click here to donate to our read about Kortnie's Krusaders.

JDRF Awards

Kortnie receiving her certificate from JDRF volunteer Ashley.

Kortnie and her Certificate.

Having a snack before the awards started, fruit plate and a spluge of Diet Coke.

Last fall we did our first ever JDRF Walk to Cure Diabetes. We registered as a family team, the 5 of us and 1 of Kortnie's friends. We raised about $1300.00! A few weeks ago we got an email that said we were invited to the Family Walk Awards. It just happened that we were planning on being in the Valley that day (the Valley=Phoenix area) (we live about 3.5 hours away), so we RSVP'd yes we'd love to come. We went down Friday afternoon, I took the kids out of school at lunchtime and we drove down. Friday afternoon we did some shopping, Desseret Book and Costco, we checked into the hotel then headed over to the mall. We walked around the mall and had dinner at the food court. Afterwards we went back to the hotel it was about 7:30 p.m. the kids wanted to swim, the pool was heated so I thought why not, let them have some fun! It was a great day and the dreaded D actually behaved itself! The BG's stayed in range between 103 and 174 the whole day! I did notice that walking around the mall and swimming (swimming with the pump disconnected) did make her BG's go down about 15-20 points.

Saturday morning we got up, went to the Continental breakfast at our hotel, a total carb fest of course! Then we checked out and had some time to kill so we went over to Walmart to treat ourselves to new flip flops. We found the place where the JDRF awards were going to be held and signed in. They also had a breakfast set up so we went to see what kind of goodies they had. They had a fruit bar, danishs, donuts, bagels, cereals, sodas, juice, water, and coffee. They actually had alot more junk than I would have expected. Since we had had breakfast only an hour or so earlier I let the kids all get some fruit and a soda. The awards thing was nice, we got to talk with some other D families, Kortnie got a certificate of achievement and we picked up some tips for fundraising for next years walk. We also learned more about the School Walk to Cure Diabetes and I think we'll take part in that this fall. The awards thing ended at about 11:35am, perfect timing, because the main reason we were down in the Valley was to pick up my husband from the airport, his flight was schedualed to land at 11:45, the awards thing was like a 6 minute drive from the airport, we got to the terminal right as his plane pulled up to the gate. Love it when things work out that way! My husband and I both used to work at the Phoenix airport, I worked at Continental Airlines which he was flying in on so I got to see some of my old co-workers that was a really nice treat as well! After we picked up we headed home, doing some more shopping on the way. We went back to the mall and got new phones, then to Sam's Club and out to dinner at Old Country Buffett. As always buffetts give me a D-Headache, Kortnie picks out pretty much all carbs at these, rolls, cinnamon rolls, mac and cheese, mashed potatos, pizza, ice cream with sprinkles, you get the idea. Again, it was supposed to be a fun weekend so we let her get what she wanted. Her BG was 135 before dinner, we did a combo bolus for a whopping 100 carbs, one hour after we finished eating she was a 275, another bolus, 1 hour later down to 237, another bolus, 1 hour later she was back in range (kind of) at 175, another little bolus and by the time we were home she was 118. Midnight check of 116 and, 4 am 123. Not too shabby. It was a great weekend, and Ihave to say I felt like I conqured the D-Mountain!

2010 JDRF Walk to Cure Diabetes Tempe, AZ

We took part in the JDRF Walk to Cure Diabetes at Tempe Town Lake, here in Arizona last weekend. I think it was pretty successful. It was our first year to walk as a family team (about 6 or 7 years ago before D hit us personally I did this walk with my first daughter as part of a corporate team). I registered our team under the name "Friends and Family of Kortnie Silverhorn" back in January I think, but as time went on I decieded our team name should be Korky's Krusaders. So next year I think that's what we'll call ourselves. I registerd all 5 of us as individual walkers on the family team and set a fundraising goal of $1000. I am happy to say that we raised a total of $1220.00 for our walk. Most of our donations came from family and friends.

The walk took place last Saturday October 30th. Tempe is about a 3 hour drive for us. We decieded that we'd just drive down early Saturday morning, so we left here about 5:30am and got there right at 9:00. We ended up doing only the 1.5 mile fun walk rather than the full 3.2 mile walk. We figured that would be much easier on the kids and our sanity as well. After the walk was over we checked out the booths, I signed us up for trial net, and the kids got to paint pumpkins. We enjoyed the lunch that the walk put on as well. We were in a hurry to get back home for trick or treating though, so we didn't hang around too long. I think next year, we will plan to go down to the Valley the night before and make it more of a family weekend getaway.

Below are some pictures of us on walk day, the weather was beautiful, the people we saw treated Kortnie like a princess and she enjoyed getting some good attention because of her diabetes, people with knowledge asking her "smart" questions about her diabetes, her pump, her test kits, etc. She told me that it was nice that we didn't have to talk about it all day. Which I didn't get at first because it was like Diabetes was everywhere, but later I figured that she meant we didn't have to answer the same questions or explain the same things over and over like we do with non-D people.


Our family walk team (right to left) Big Sister Stasia (7 almost 8), Korky our D-kid (6 years old), Daddy-O Brian, Me, best friend Zoie (7 also almost 8) and on my lap is little brother Graham (3 years old).

Kortnie paining her pumpkin, a fun activity!

Stasia walking for a cure!

Zoie (in pink shorts) and Korky (in black pants) walking for a cure!

The girls, Stasia, Zoie and Korky