In the beginning

This is going to be a long story. Read it, don't read it, I don't mind. This is for my little girl, so that when she's old enough she can understand.

Our little girl was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes after being admitted to hospital on the 12 October 2014. She was DKA.

My husband and I had a conversation at the beginning of September, slightly concerned that Tink was waking up in the night to have a drink. She is a strong willed child, and we wondered if she had just got into a pattern so we put it to the back of our minds and carried on with everyday life.

Everyday life was normal. The kids returned to school after the summer holidays, everything was the same as always. Then things very slowly started to change, but I can only say that with hindsight (an amazing thing that!) We'd be out shopping and tink would be hounding us to get a drink, our reply was always "in a minute" or "after we've done this", and then there was the needing a wee as soon as we'd got any where, but not so much that it raised alarm, I just remember saying, "make sure you go before we leave home next time."

She then started to become a little bit more vulnerable. She started to ride her bike slower to school, we put it down to the gears being broken (which they were), so we bought her a new bike. She still struggled to ride but we then put it down to the fact it was an adult bike and she would just need to get used to it. She would stand with me in the playground before school, not wanting to go in, needing her friends before she would make the walk across the playground. I knew something was up but I put it down to the colds that the kids had, or the night time waking that were just making her feel tired. But then a moment of realisation that something was wrong…

We had all gone to bed, the room was dark and Guy convinced he heard something sat up and turned on the light. Nothing there, so he lay back down. Again, a strange noise, and once again the light went on, but nothing, no one there. Once again he lay back down but then again a noise, a gulping noise. He sat up, turned on the night and called out our daughters name only for her to answer and pop her head up from the side of the bed where she had crawled and was secretly drinking my water!

The next night she woke up 3 times. She drunk 1 pint of water at each waking, and went to the toilet each time.

Needless to say we made her an appointment at the doctors. We went that evening.

Tuesday 7 October

The doctor showed a serious interest and advised that we go for a blood test the following morning so we did. He said not to worry too much but it would be better to go sooner than later and that he would get the results rushed through and let us know the outcome on Thursday.

Wednesday 8 October

Tink bravely watched as the drained two vials of blood from her very blue vein in her arm at 9.30 in the morning and then she and I walked hand in hand to school. She asked if we could walk slowly so that she could miss assembly, so we did. Every now and then she told me I was walking too fast.

Thursday 9 October

I rang the next day at 2pm to get the results. I was told the results were back but the doctor needed to action then. I asked when I should ring and they told me to call back at the same time the next day. I was starting to worry. I spoke to a lady I work with who used to be a nurse. I remember saying "I don't think she has diabetes because surely there would be other signs?" She told me that they may not be noticeable at this stage but she asked if she had stomach ache or felt sick often. I went cold and thought back to those words that I'd heard from my baby so many times over the past month… "mummy I feel a bit sick", "mummy my tummy hurts". I hadn't ignored them but I hadn't given them much thought. Now I was really starting to worry.

Friday 10 October

Tink stood with me in the playground, cuddling up to me and looking grey and poorly. As she finally walked off my heart ached. She looked so small and vulnerable in her coat that looked all of a sudden far too big for her. I was worried. I fought with my instincts to keep her off school, thinking that she would be pre-occupied  with school, the diabetes wasn't what was worrying me as much as I just thought she was unwell. But needless to say as soon as 2pm came round I was on the phone to the doctors only to be told that the liver and kidneys were fine but the glucose test wasn't back and wouldn't be back until Monday.
I came off the phone and cried, the thought of going through the weekend with the sword of damocles hanging over my head was not appealing. I rang my dad and told him and he suggested I ring and get an appointment with the doctor. Unfortunately none were available but they put me down for a phone call. At 6pm he called and said there was a low level viral infection which could account for some of the symptoms. Job done. We started the weekend thinking she was under the weather.

Saturday 11 October

Tink woke up at 10am, she'd normally wake at 8.30am on the weekend, and she came and climbed in bed with me and lay there until 11am. My boy, doodle, was down stairs playing the xbox. She's normally be playing with him. I just thought she was poorly and was suffering with flu, it seemed like flu. No energy, no appetite and after all the Doctor had said 'low level viral infection'. She pretty much spent all day on the sofa. She wasn't reacting the things the way she normally would. She wasn't laughing at things she would normally find funny. I was worried, but only in the way you would be when your child is under the weather.

At 7pm she asked if we could go and get a burger king. We decided if she felt like eating we should accommodate her, actually guy decided that, I was still trying to convince her that I could cook them something nice for tea. She didn't eat much. 2 nuggets and five chips, but thats okay, she had a 'viral infection'.

Sunday 12 October

Tink woke up at 10am again today. This time I noticed her breathing was strange. It was laboured and heavy. She was meant to be going to a ballet rehearsal but she didn't feel up to it, but she said that she wanted to go to her friends party if only for a while. She was quite chirpy today and asked if she could have a bath and get ready. I wasn't convinced she should go to the party but she can be quite persuasive when she wants to be. We got caught in traffic on the way so we ended up being 20 minutes late. It was a build a bear party and Guy dropped us off as near to the shop as possible. We jumped out of the car and I held her hand as I walked quickly to the shop. I was dragging her along and she shouted at me "mummy your walking too fast!"

I spoke to the mummy of the birthday girl and told her that I would stay at the shopping centre and to phone me if Tink got to the point where she didn't feel well enough to stay. We talked briefly about her having a test for diabetes but that she was also under the weather.

1 hour later I got that call. I ran up the broken escalator to get her from the restaurant. She looked awful. I carried her to meet Guy and Doodle and I panicked. I knew something was wrong, I knew she wasn't well but the 'viral infection' was still running through our heads. I told Guy I wanted to take her to the hospital and we talked about what we would say, what was wrong that she needed to go to the hospital. Yes, she looked unwell, yes her breathing was heavy but she didn't have a temperature. We talked ourselves out of it and went home. I gave her some medicine and she fell asleep on the sofa at 4pm and slept until 7pm. At 7pm she woke up and said she wanted something to eat so she had a couple of sausages but then lay back down and fell asleep again. I sat on the sofa next to her, her hands and her feet were freezing so I googled meningitis, I googled diabetes, I got Guy to see if her breath smelt, he couldn't smell anything.We moved her up to her bed at 9pm.

It was 10pm and she was sick. We took of her clothes and Guy washed her down. She stood in the bath as Guy showered her body and hair and I changed the bed sheets. We put her back down on our bed and within half an hour she was violently sick again. I took off her clothes for a second time and saw something that scared me. Her body from feet up was mottled. Not just a little, completely mottled. I phoned 111. Within 2 hours a doctor phoned me back and arranged an appointment at a ridiculously hard to find hospital with an emergency doctor. My dad took me and tink there and Guy stayed with doodle. I carried her in but she was still communicative, I kept saying to the doctor she's not very well. I was worried she wasn't taking us seriously. I told her she'd been for a blood test and we were waiting on the results for Diabetes. She smelt Tinks breathe and then pricked her finger and took a reading of her blood. She phoned for an ambulance and we were rushed to A&E.