Back in end of February 2017, my little girl (who was 6 years old at the time) got sick... she laid on the couch for 3 days nearly lifeless and had no energy whatsoever: we couldn’t get her to eat much. I took her to the pediatrician doctor on the first day and he said it was just a virus and it had to run its course but she kept worse and worse...by the third day, i was really concerned. My mom instinct was screaming that there was something bad wrong!! This wasn’t a virus. I called my mom. I asked to her to come over and see what she thought about my daughter in person. My mom brought her lunch from a local restaurant—My daughter was crazy about my mom (“Gramma”) and usually, if Gramma would come by, she would go bananas and run around saying “Gramma’s here! Gramma’s here!!” On this day, however, she didn’t budge off the couch. When my mom tried to talk to her, she barely responded. My mom tried to get her to eat some of the lunch she had brought in. My daughter was so lethargic she couldn’t even eat. She just laid there. My mom quickly agreed with my assessment. There was something much worse going on that a simple virus. We decided to take my daughter to a different doctor.
I called another family member to come sit with my son, and my mom and I got my daughter ready and took her to another doctor’s office. My daughter was very independent at this time and usually, dressed and took care of herself. On this day, however, we had to dress her and even carry her because she didn’t have the strength to do it on her own. I was getting very concerned by this time.
When we saw that doctor, and began telling her what was going on, she began running tests on my little girl. The urine sample came back that she has large amounts of ketones in her urine. she was in severe ketoacidosis which is a serious complication where the body produces excess blood acids (ketones) This condition occurs when there isn't enough insulin in the body...It can be triggered by infection or other illness but essentially, it is a condition experienced by diabetics.
We didn’t know that at the time though. The doctor just said she has ketones in her urine and she was very dehydrated. The doctor said to take her to the ER for IV fluids.
Unbeknownst to us, the doctor actually was suspecting something far worse than dehydration... She had put notes on my daughter’s medical chart and had requested more extensive tests to be run at the hospital...We thought we were just taking her to get IV fluids for dehydration... Little did we know the nightmare that was about to unfold!
We had to wait for a long time in the ER. My daughter was very anxious and scared. We assured her it was just because she was dehydrated and we just had to get them to “rehydrate” her and she would be all better...
( 🤦🏼♀️ We had no clue!!) After what seemed like FOREVER, they finally took us back to an ER room and started examining her. They ran test after test, even did a couple xrays as well. The ER doctor was trying to be nice and told my daughter if she could drink an entire 20oz sprite (she had also had some Gatorade), he wouldn’t make her do an IV. God love her heart, she bravely chugged it because she was so afraid of the IV. They did blood work soon after her drinking the Sprite/Gatorade and we were waiting for that to come back.
All the other tests that they had done began coming back negative one by one. I remember the doctor sitting in the room with us going over the negative tests one by one. He was saying it was probably a virus and it had made her dehydrated which had made her lethargic and being dehydrated will mess with an urine test.... He said as long as the blood work looked ok, he was about to release her — just keep plenty of fluids in her.
All of the sudden, one of the nurses came in and told him to quickly look at her blood work results that had just came in...he pulled up the chart and after reading the results, everything changed in an instant. He started ordering more tests and told them to call Cabell Huntington Hospital (another more advanced hospital in our area) and see if they had a bed available in Pediatric ICU and if so, to arrange for a transport and that he needed a consult call immediately with one of the on call Pediatric ICU doctors on what to do right this second with her.
We were in shock— everything was happening so fast! We didn’t even know what it was that was happening! The doctor motioned for us to step out in the hall. (By this time, my husband & my dad (“Grampa”) had arrived and they stayed in the room with my daughter. Mom and I followed the doctor out in to the hall. He told us plainly—“The bloodwork shows that your little girl is a type 1 diabetic. She is in severe ketoacidosis. It can be life threatening if we don’t handle this quickly. We are going to transport her by ambulance to Cabell Pediatric ICU. She needs immediate care. This case (being this severe of a pediatric case ) is way out of our league. He said he was getting a consult from ICU doctors on how much insulin to give her to even transport her safely. She was that bad. Her insulin level was 235 which is concerning especially for someone as teeny as she was.
We were reeling from the news...
She had diabetes??!!! What?? Bless her little heart, even after the doctor promising if she drank all those drinks, she wouldn’t have to have an IV, they immediately came in to put an IV in. She was so distraught. She kept saying, “But I drank it all!!”
We tried to explain it to her but we barely could understand it ourselves. Cabell told the ER to give her 0.001 of insulin to make her stable enough to transport and they sent an ambulance to get her. Somewhere along the lines, however, the wires got crossed and instead of the prescribed 0.001/kg/hr of insulin, she was given 0.01/hr of insulin— which doesn’t sound like that big of a deal, but it was!! Her insulin was 235 at the ER, but by the time, she arrived at the pediatric ICU at Cabell, the incorrect dosage of insulin had dropped it from 235 to 30 — in the ambulance ride, she was so lethargic she had trouble responding. I asked the EMT if that was ok. Unbeknownst to her about the incorrect dose, she said it was normal with how sick she was. She said that in a case as bad as what my daughter appeared to be, we would probably be in the hospital at least 4-5 days if all went well. I said something about the diabete diagnosis being life changing and she said they would probably install an insulin pump to make it more easier on my daughter in every day life.
I was so overwhelmed...my baby was going to have to have an insulin pump for the rest of her life ??!! When we got there, they rushed her to ICU. They noticed immediately how lifeless she was and took a finger prick glucose test - it showed 30. It quickly became an emergency scene as nurses and staff crowded around her working on her... I didn’t realize how close we came to losing her until much later...
Once they got her stable, they began doing another huge battery of tests on her. All the results were not looking good. Her blood work was super bad. My mom asked the nurse if there was any way that the diabetes diagnosis could be a false positive and be something else instead. The nurse said she had been an RN for over 30 years. She said in all of her career, she had never seen someone with all the symptoms and test results that my daughter had, end up not having diabetes. She said they were 100% sure she had diabetes and we needed to come to terms with that. We needed to be strong for her and we were going to have to take a counseling course before leaving the hospital on how to help her and take care of her.
After her diagnosis, we realized that she had been showing signs for months prior to this. She had been wanting to eat a lot more than normal- but she wasn’t gaining any weight - she was always thirsty as well... she kinda smelled like maple syrup a lot too- we didn’t really notice it ourselves but her dentist had commented about how she smelled like waffles—I just assumed it was because my mom often burned a butter pecan scented candle and we were over there frequently— but at another doctor’s appt, the nurse said she smelled yummy like pancake syrup— again, I laughed and I blamed the candle... and there were several other things that she did that we simply overlooked because we never dreamed she would have diabetes... The nurse explained that the ‘maple syrup’ smell was actually a warning sign that her body was burning off ketones — which has to do with her insulin levels. The nurse said that usually in kids, they either discover the diabetes at age 4, at age 7, or age 10-12,
She was about to turn 7...
So this definitely wasn’t a case of misdiagnosis... she had had symptoms for quite a while...
They pricked her finger for insulin levels every 30 minutes. She had been poked and prodded with needles until her fingers and arms were covered in bruises....
I would like to say through this whole ordeal up until this point, I prayed and called fire down from Heaven... I would like to say that I had such a peace about it—that I knew God was in control! But that wouldn’t be the truth....instead, I just felt completely numb inside. I couldn’t even process what was happening myself... I couldn’t go off and pray and get ahold of the Lord. The best I could do was whisper a prayer in my mind...but sometimes, God can hear 👂 those prayers just as easily as if you were screaming from the mountaintop...
(helpful tip: always pray while the sun is shining—it’s too hard to try to get right with God in the middle of a crisis!! Get ahold of God and serve Him with your whole heart when there is nothing wrong: If you do that, then when trouble comes, He won’t be far from you!! 🙌🏻 🙏🏼👏🏼😭🎶
My little girl was so afraid!! I was in the hospital bed with her, holding her. She was literally shaking from fear Mom, Dad, and my husband had told others in the church and the pastor and were keeping them updated. I, on the other hand, didn’t do anything but hold my daughter and try to get her to calm down ... she was so panicked and fearfully. Way up into the late night, that even though she was so exhausted after the day we had had, every little sound would wake her up and she would start crying and shaking. Every time, she started to doze off, it would be time for yet another glucose test. She desperately needed to sleep... I was at my wit’s end. I just held her and started rocking her... I began to softly sing an old gospel song. One song led to another...then another...the crying stopped...the shaking quit... slowly, her breathing evened out and I could feel her starting to relax... I just kept singing softly to her and rocking her...her eyes started to close... you could almost feel the Spirit of the Lord walk into that ICU room... and before too long, I realized she was fast asleep...
I just kept rocking and singing...then the door opened and the nurse came in to do yet another 30 min glucose test. I was like oh no! She just fell asleep!! but miraculously, she didn’t even wake up — God kept her asleep! Through rest of the night, she slept through multiple test and needle pricks — I was amazed!! (She didn’t wake back up until 7am!)
Mama, on the other hand, wasn’t so fortunate. My mind was being bombarded and overwhelmed. I was so afraid of what the future was going to look like for my daughter and our entire family going forward... so much uncertainty and so much fear!! I got a text from a friend around 3:30 am... she said she and her husband were in bed asleep and the Lord woke them up to pray for my daughter. They had been praying and was texting to check on her. I gave her an update and she shared a Scripture verse with me as well... I didn’t think anything else about it really.
Sometime, after that, the nurse came in and turned down my daughter’s IV insulin - Her glucose test showed she was getting too much insulin. She said that sometimes, when first getting on insulin, the body will overcompensate and you will have to lower or stop the dose temporarily until you get it regulated. So we didn’t recognize the start of a miracle then...
Around 7am, the nurse came in and woke my daughter in the process... she said we need to redo some of the tests from last night. My mom asked her why and she said they were unsure about some stuff and needed to retest some things. They did all those tests and a little bit later, the nurse came back in and she had a puzzled look on her faces... (That same nurse that said she had been an RN for over 30 years and in all of her career, she had never seen someone with all the symptoms and test results that my daughter had, end up not having diabetes. )
She said — Something is not right. We can not explain it! But somewhere in the middle of the night, something changed. Your daughter’s blood work completely flipped.. all the numbers that were bad before are now within normal range. We turned off her insulin a few hours ago and her body has done just fine. Everything is going back to normal ranges on its own... if we keep giving her insulin at this point, it’s going to do more harm than good. We are just going to monitor her today and see how she does ...
We were amazed ! (Although we shouldn’t have been really!! With the God we serve!!! ) So they continued to monitor her and she did great! Everything just kept getting better and better...
In the meantime, the hospital Pediatric ICU had a program for very sick children or children with life changing diagnosis— they give each child a special toy... the night before, when it was really bad and they were doing all the painful tests and poking her with needles, the nurses promised her that the next day, they would bring her a doll... (we assumed it would be a cheap baby doll or something) but when the nurse walked in the next morning to make good on her promise to my daughter, she was carrying an genuine American Girl doll. My little girl had wanted a real American Girl doll forever but any of you that are familiar with the brand know that they aren’t cheap... she had a few knockoff ones but it wasn’t the same...The nurse handled it to my daughter. She was overjoyed!! When she opened the box, there was a beautiful doll inside that looked surprisingly similar in features to my daughter herself. When she asked what her name was, we discovered the doll’s name was Grace!! How ironic!! For you see, Grace is my daughter’s middle name and we sure saw God’s grace in that hospital room!!
The nurses and the doctors, to this day, scratch their heads over her “miracle”- there is no other explanation for it — (although one doctor tried to say it was just dehydration messing with the blood work) — Her main ICU doctor said they couldn’t explain it. There was a 100% diagnosis and overnight, it was gone. She, too, was a seasoned expert and had never saw anything like it before...we told them—we know what it was!! It was God moving on the situation!! As my husband so eloquently put it later in a testimony at church, “God made a ruling!”...
Yes, I do not understand why she had to go through that painful experience, but I do know that God used it for His glory !! All those doctors/nurses got to see His hand at work! and my daughter also got to see the Lord at work in her life at a young age. She has the testimony of the Lord healing HER body! ...She now knows firsthand— that God is a healer!! Since then, if she hears a prayer request for someone ( with diabetes especially) she always says God can heal them because he healed me!!
That has been over 6 years ago, but she vividly remembers it like it was yesterday... in her daily prayers, I can hear her thanking the Lord for healing her of diabetes... she knows her life could be much different except for the grace and mercies of the Lord...
So when He does something for us, all He wants is for us to turn around and thank Him! He deserves all praise!! He is truly a wonderful God!! It pays to serve the Lord!!
There have been other incidents in her young life since, and we have been able to go back to that diabetes healing and say — Lord, you did it then! You are doing it even now!! And you will do it in the future!!
