Day #6 of D-Blog Week: Snapshots

Saturday snapshots – Saturday 5/14:Today is the only day I’ve brought back a fun topic from last year.  Inspired by the Diabetes 365 project, let’s snap a few more d-related pictures and share them again.  Post as many or as few as you’d like.  Be creative!  Feel free to blog your thoughts on or explanations of your pictures.  Or leave out the written words and let the pictures speak for themselves.

Since I’ve never shown many pictures of Andy as a baby, I thought I would take the opportunity to do this for today’s topic.  I was recently working on Andy’s baby album and I’m always struck with very strong emotion when I see those pictures.  He was so sick those last few weeks and we don’t have a lot of pictures.  The ones we do are not a pretty sight.  It just makes my heart hurt to think he was fighting for his life and not even the doctors recognized it until it was almost too late.  So here is Andy’s story in pictures.

This picture was taken when Dan’s two sisters and niece came to visit us in Mississippi.  They were with us for the weekend, but by Sunday afternoon, I knew something was very wrong with Andy.  Notice how skinny he was.  I tried to find the pictures taken in July when he looked so healthy but I haven’t loaded them to my computer yet.  By my estimation, he had lost about 3 pounds.  You can also notice how he couldn’t hold his head up (something he was able to do just days before).

 Andy was on MDI from August until April.  We just were having too many extreme lows and highs and were struggling with measuring out 1/2 units of insulin that would bring him down 300-400 points.  He started his pump the week before his 1st birthday.  He was a much happier baby after that.  His blood sugar wasn’t perfect, but the lows almost completely disappeared and the highs were more in the 200’s when he had them.

A much happier Andy with his insulin pump ~ 12 Months old, April or May 2006

 After Andy’s DNA test came back in January 2007, we admitted him to the hospital to try the glyburide.  It was more of a precaution just in case of emergency.  I believe Andy was one of the first 5-10 patients to transition off of insulin in the US and the first in North Carolina.  He was at Brenner’s Children’s Hospital for 5 days and by the 3rd day his insulin pump was totally disconnected.  That was January 24, 2007, exactly 17 months after his first insulin shot.  (BTW, that’s a diaper we wrapped around his hand so he wouldn’t play with his catheter.  It’s the only thing that worked )

Andy in the hospital while he transitioned off of insulin and onto glyburide, January 2007, 21 months old

Andy and his favorite nurse, Joyce at the hospital, January 2007