Chloe was diagnosed on 31st December 2015 when she was 7. We were one of the lucky ones. She wasn’t in DKA, we had caught it early. She had lost 30% of her body weight, she drank an awful lot, she went to the bathroom a lot, she was tired and not her usual self. My instincts were screaming something is wrong here. Little did I know.
It was down to a stroke of serendipity and luck that I read an article on Type 1 diabetes. The article described the anguish and worry that parents face caring for kids with type 1. My heart broke reading about the sleepless nights, the constant grind of caring for someone living with a chronic illness. At the end of the article was a list of all the symptoms. Most of them Chloe had. So on Christmas Eve we took her to the doctor to get her checked.
The urine test was “borderline”, the doctor wasn’t convinced she had type 1, we insisted on a blood test and wouldn’t take no for an answer. The first working day after Christmas, we took Chloe to the local hospital to get her fasting blood test taken. On New Years Eve, we received a call from the doctor that changed our lives.
Chloe and I spent NYE and the countdown in hospital. While she slept, I binged on type 1 diabetes information. I skim read the bad stuff, looked for more positive stories, went back the bad stuff and became an overnight expert.
For the first 4 months or so, she was injecting Novarapid and Lantus. In May 2016, she moved onto a Medtronic 640g pump. The following month, she moved onto Enlite sensors. We did not have a good experience with Enlites initially so after a month of trying, we moved onto Abbott Libres for a year.
In November 2016, we relocated from London to Singapore. We wanted a new adventure, to take back and reclaim our family life after a harrowing start to 2016. If I’m honest, life in London was getting very staid and same-y. We were living Groundhog Day everyday. Work-diabetes-home-diabetes-school-diabetes-sleep-diabetes-rinse-repeat.
But also Brexit.
We needed to bring joy back to our lives.
Holohans on tour 