Parents’ of children with Type 1 diabetes instinctively know where the title ‘wetting the bed’ is going. When a child with Type 1 diabetes wets the bed it usually means that their blood sugar is too high and their body is trying to excrete the excess sugar through the urine. They wet the bed simply because it is too much too fast. They either can’ t wake up in time, or because it is so out of the norm for them to wet the bed they didn’t even have a notion of what was actually going on.
In our case, prior to my son’s diagnosis he started wetting the bed. He started about 5 days before his actual diagnosis. He wet the bed once a night for a few nights. During the night before his diagnosis he wet the bed no less than 5 times. At diagnosis the next day his sugar was over 1200 (normal being 100) so it is clear to see why his body was expelling so much urine. The amount of sugar in his blood was suffocating his cells and he was dying. His body recognized that something was wrong and tried with all it’s might to make things right.
I’m not sure if you know our diagnosis story. The abbreviated version is my son started wetting the bed and drinking a lot, I started researching diabetes, I demanded a urine test at his 4 year old check up, and the rest is history. Our story is here http://s782639264.onlinehome.us/?p=174 if you want to read it.
The title of this post, however, is not about my son, it is about my daughter. My newly minted 6 year old who does not have Type 1 diabetes. My healthy, beautiful, energetic, sassy 6 year old daughter wet the bed the other night and the only thing I could think of was…diabetes. I skipped over the fact that she took a cough medicine that could have made her extra tired, I skipped over the fact that she could have forgotten to pee before she got into bed that night, I skipped over the fact that she could have been dreaming about the ocean. I skipped all the reasons a mom without any children with diabetes would think of. I went right to it. Right to diabetes. Right to another diagnosis.
She doesn’t have diabetes…for now.
After I cleaned her up, and put her snug in her bed, I did check her sugar. It was perfect. I did breathe a sigh of relief…for that moment.
That one moment in time when my daughter does not have diabetes.
In my heart, and gut, I am waiting for the other diagnosis. I don’t know for sure of course, but along those lines, I don’t know for sure one is never coming either. I am always in a state of waiting. Waiting if she will be diagnosed, or waiting if she won’t. People are diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes well into their 50s so the waiting will never end for me.
Every time she eats too much…I hold my breath.
Every time she pees too much…I wait.
Every time she asks for 2 drinks in a row…I worry.
Diabetes permeates your heart and soul even when you work 24 hours a day pretending that it doesn’t.