Diagnosis

Hmmmm where to begin? I suppose a little about me. I am a 33 year old male, living in Brisbane Australia. I am happily married with 3 beautiful daughters 8, 5 and 2. I work in the IT industry but am not technical at all, hence why I am in sales. I can talk the talk enough to be successful but rely on the experts when it counts. I have had Type 1 Diabetes (T1D) for the last 23 years and as I thought to myself just the other day I have now had it for a lot longer than I didn't so to remember life without needles, tests, doctors and blood is becoming difficult.

DIAGNOSIS

Anyway, why I am writing this? I don't really know, partly for myself, partly that maybe I can help at least one other feel like their not alone in their daily battle with T1D and maybe partly because one day I would like my daughters to be able to read what it has been like and in the unfortunate situation that one of them develops T1D then it will be there for them.

Now down to My Life with T1D... It was early 1990 and I was in grade 5. Everything in the first term was as you expect, usual school yard antics and to tell you the truth I didn't mind school. I wasn't the top of the class but I wasn't at the bottom either. As I moved into the second term of the year some strange things started to happen and to be honest I wasn't old enough to think something was wrong so never said anything to my parents even though now looking back nothing would have been more obvious. I began getting up a few times a night and having to go to the toilet. At the same time, and this is where I thought I was being sneaky, my family used to have a dozen 1ltr soft drinks delivered every week. After going to the toilet I would find myself going to the soft drink cupboard and the thirst was unsurpressible. It started with a bottle lasting 2 or so nights but it wasn't long before it went to 2 bottles a night. To try and hide it I would sneak outside in the middle of the night to place the empty bottles in the crate ready for pick up. I know how obvious...

This night time awakenings continued for weeks with the frequency getting more and more, the thirst was also getting unbearable... What I didn't know and from discussions with my mum later in life my weight was dropping and dropping fast. I got through the second term of school and began the school holidays. Due to my parents working and like most kids the holidays meant time with the grand parents. Always fun as they can have all the fun with no long lasting responsiblity. This includes feeding us all of those sugerie goodies. As you can imagine by now I was struggling at night, struggling with an inquenchible thirst and my weight was dropping. Halfway through the holidays I remember the day before diagnosis. I was at my nans with my 2 cousins, the older of which was my female petite cousin of the same age. The reason why I point this out was because we found an old scale, one with the manual weights from one of the rooms at nans and we thought it would be fun to weigh ourselves (with the help of nan of course cause we had no idea how these old scales worked). I can't recall the actual numbers but we all thought it was strange that for the first time in our lives I was lighted than my cousin. After a day of fun and a lot of sugary goodies I went home. The night went the same as the last few weeks, peeing and drinking oh and little to no sleep.

As much as I thought mum didn't know what was going on she must have as the first trip for the day was the family doctor. After being in the consulting room for a matter of minutes I experienced my first of many blood glucose readings. After waiting a minute for the results to show and then an additional 5 mins for the doc to compare the colour strip against the bottle the doc informed my mum and I that my blood glucose level was 26.9 and that it would be best if I were taken straight into hospital as he believes my to have type 1, insulin dependant diabetes.

The week that followed was the week that changed my life forever and in many respects caused me to grow up a lot quicker than a child should...