My oldest son, Judah, was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes on a Saturday, two days after Thanksgiving. I’ll start at the beginning of the week.

Sunday: Judah was four at the time and he is a Christian and decided he wanted to be baptized. At the time we went to a house church (we no longer attend that church) and would usually have baptisms in a pool, but because it was November, the whole church came over to our house to see Judah and two others be baptized in our bathtub. Later that night he went to a get together with other kids from the church.

Monday night, Judah’s cousin invited him to go to Chick-fil-a with her. He is an extremely social kid and is always super excited to go hang out with cousins or friends, but not that night. We made him go because we knew he would have fun. He did have fun, but they brought him home earlier than we expected because he was so tired (he usually a night owl).

Tuesday: I started to be concerned about his lack of energy and wanted to take him to the doctor but I didn’t know what I would say other than he’s not acting like himself. He had no symptoms (that I recognized at the time) to tell the doctor about.

Wednesday: A friend invited him over and again we made him go even though he didn’t want to because we knew he would have fun when he got there. It was almost exactly the same as Monday night, his friend’s mom brought him home early because he was exhausted.

Thursday (Thanksgiving): All of his cousins on my side of the family were at my mom’s house playing and my husband had to go to the store. There’s NEVER a time Judah volunteers to go to the store, especially when all the cousins are together, but Judah begged to go to the store with Jared.

Later, we were going to my husband’s parents house and Judah did not want to go at all, but he LOVES going to his grandparents house and being with his uncles and cousins. It didn’t make any sense to us.

Another thing about Judah is that he has always been a picky eater since he started eating food. We’ve always had to bribe him if we wanted him to eat a meal in less than an hour. So on Thanksgiving we decided we would let him pick what food he wanted to eat…all sweets. Every time I think of that thanksgiving, it just makes me sick, not just because I didn’t recognize the symptoms of type 1 diabetes, but because I feel like I made him even sicker by allowing him to eat only carbs that day. But I can’t change that, no matter how much I want to.

At my in-laws house, he didn’t want to play with anyone, he just sat on the couch. Later, at my mom’s house, while all the cousins were playing and there was so much activity going on, he laid on the couch just watching people. That was not Judah at all, he is ALWAYS in the middle of all the action, and at that point everyone in my family started worrying about him.

Friday: My husband’s birthday. Every year, the day after Thanksgiving, we decorate our house for Christmas. My husband isn’t really as much into Christmas or the decorating as I am so I decided we would get the house decorated while he was at work. Since I had just had a c-section three weeks prior to Thanksgiving, I still couldn’t do any of the lifting to decorate so my mom came over to help.

Judah is very enthusiastic about everything he does, and even more so when it comes to Christmas decorating. He joined in all the festivities, but it was obvious he was starting to feel worse. He started having trouble breathing (he has had asthmas since he was 15 months old), so we thought maybe he had been getting sick and that’s why he hadn’t been acting like himself.

That night was horrible, he was having difficulty breathing, so we gave him breathing treatments all night long, but they didn’t seem to help. It was so strange, it seemed like he had the flu, he had all the symptoms, but just no fever. All night I was trying to decide if he needed to go to the emergency room or not.

Side note- trust that mother’s intuition you have!!! All week long, I knew that something was wrong with him, but I didn’t trust my gut and was trying to wait it out. I had even asked Judah at some point during the week if he felt bad and when he said yes I asked him when he started feeling bad and he said it was Sunday night during the kids get together. Not taking him to the doctor earlier in the week is another one of those things I have to try to not feel guilty about – I can’t change the past, but I can learn from it.

Saturday: When Judah’s breathing still had not gotten better by morning, I called the weekend clinic as soon as they opened and they, thankfully, got us in immediately. My husband was on call for the weekend so I took Judah and my three week old son to the doctor, but I believe that the Lord was looking out for us even in that, I don’t know if my husband would have been quite as stubborn as I was when we got to the clinic. I was not going to leave that office until I had an answer.

I think I’ve kept you long enough on this post, I’ll give you a little bit of a break and let you pick back up in the next post with how the appointment with the doctor went, some of the symptoms Judah was having. He was in diabetic Ketoacidosis when he was diagnosed and I want to give you any information I can to help you recognize the symptoms either before they are in DKA (diabetic Ketoacidosis) or when they are in it so you’ll know to get them to the emergency room right away.

I don’t always remember to share all the details when I’m recounting a story, so please let me know if there’s anything I left out or any questions you have!