Painful Changes

A Biographical Narrative about what was probable the biggest change of my life...

As a child I was terrified of needles. Whenever I needed one, I would scream and cry; a typical child's reaction really. Even then though, I never expected something I feared so much to become an accepted part of my daily life.

The symptoms were slow and went unnoticed at first, but, over time they grew worse and did indeed become noticeable. However another change had also been occurring in my life around then; my family and I were moving from our home in Perth, WA to a small town called Fingal on the east coast of Tasmania. Instead of catching the plane we opted to drive across the bottom of Australia, or as Mum called it; across the Nullarbor. It was an exciting time of change and I was amazed and awed at what I was able to experience, but it was also on the drive that Mum and Dad began to notice slight changes in me; I was sleeping more and had less energy than usual and also needed to use the bathroom more excessively. My parents put it down as odd but nothing to be concerned about.

Soon we were in Tasmania, my new official home after having spent so many holidays there. I had already been enrolled in school the year before and soon enough the new school year was starting. My previously noted lethargy and lack of energy seemed to be gone as I went about town and school as usual, however the excessive need to urinate had not lessened at all and I also had the need to drink constantly.

These things only increased over the next few months and the lack of energy returned, this time accompanied by a general feeling of being unwell. It was actually my teacher at the time; Joan Lowe, who became truly concerned about me. I had often finished my drink bottle before morning break and needed to go the bathroom often during class.

It had been one day when I had complained of a headache that she gave my mother a call and had her come collect me from school.

I remember her saying that there was definitely something wrong.

So later that day I found myself sitting in the local doctors office with my Mother as we explained everything that had been happening. The doctor had sent us home with tablets for a bowel infection and we figured that was all there was to it; we figured that in a week or so everything would be fine again.

Those tablets were hard to swallow and I hated taking them, but I did so anyway, both for my Mum and to try and feel better.

Nothing changed.

If anything my conditions worsened, and a few weeks later the prescriptions ran out. We returned to the doctor, my Mum concerned now more than ever and myself simply unsure but blissfully unaware of the changes that would occur only too soon.

It was that day that the doctor told my Mother that I may have a condition, or disease as they labelled it then, called Diabetes. Almost straight away we were sent to the closest hospital, which was over an hours drive from home.

Launceston General Hospital was big and seriously lacked colour. It had the typical hospital smell and look about it, but it was all new and wondrous to me then. Tests were done and there was a lot of confusion on my part as people moved about me. I never understood what they all meant by Diabetes, but like most children I tired to understand, I tried to be brave when the kind, sympathetic people called 'Diabetes Educators' began to tell me exactly what having my new condition meant.

My life completely changed in the next few days.

I had Type 1 Diabetes and at first when they began to tell me that I would need needles it didn't truly sink in. I just couldn't comprehend what 'life long condition', or 'you will need to inject a thing called insulin into your body everyday' meant, it was a foreign concept to a young mind.

All I knew was that I was scared.

Each time it came to a needle the tears never ended, I would resist to the point that every time I would need to be held down by several nurses while the needle was administered. I was miserable, angry, confused and just wanted all the pain and fear to end.

Quiet moments during the week that I was in hospital were the best. It was then I could forget the terror of my next needle and simply watch and meet other children on the ward. I wasn't the only kid there who was going through hard times; I wasn't the most unfortunate but neither was I the least. The children's ward at LGH offered schooling and activities throughout the day and I would usually spend my time doing a game or puzzle with Mum or occasionally with another patient.

The weekend I was diagnosed with Diabetes was also Easter weekend and I was lucky to have my Mum with me the whole time. Not all children have that, and I found out what it looked like to miss a parent during that time. What I saw sitting in my hospital bed one night will stay with me forever, even if it wasn't anything that serious. A young boy was in with sever eczema, both of his hands completely wrapped in bandages until he looked like a boxer. Mum and I were talking, it was quite late but I wasn't ready to sleep yet. The boy, who had been in the bed across from me in the four person room, had fallen asleep a while earlier while his Mum had still been there. We watched the Mum leave after putting one of those large Easter bunny shaped eggs on the end of his bed, and not long after he had woken up and, noticing the lack of his Mother, had started to panic.

“Hey, it's ok. Your Mum will be back soon.” I had said, trying to help keep the boy calm and hoping to cheer him up. He had looked at me and shook his head in vehement denial.

“Yeah she will. Look she even left you a present on the end of your bed.” I coaxed with a smile, thinking that if he found the egg he would be happy again.

“No.” Was the only reply I got as the boy started crying.

I never was able to make him smile.

It had hurt to see any child cry as he did, even if his Mother had indeed returned later, it had been the raw emotion and fear in the boys eyes and the thought of my own Mother not being there that made we hope to never have to live with that.

Slowly the days went by and even more slowly I began to adjust to the injections that I now needed daily; I was still scared and hated them but the constant words of encouragement that the people around me gave, began to make it easier.

Day by day I was learning more and more about the condition I now had to live with, and day by day I was learning to accept that there was little chance that it would ever change. After around a week I was discharged from hospital and allowed to go home.

Back at school, all the teachers had to be told about what I had and what had to done in certain events. Mum was the one who had to tell them all, had to explain all the possible situations that she had learnt. It was really too bad that I still didn't fully understand.

Everything in the hospital had been monitored by nurses and doctors and I didn't know how to detect or comprehend the strange changes in my own body once we were gone.

Things seemed to go back to normal school wise after that, until one day when I was sitting in class when we were meant to be doing what would usually be a simple cross word.

I couldn't think straight.

Ms. Lowe had noticed something was wrong and asked me if I was ok, but not wanting to worry her and not even really thinking anything was wrong I had told her I was fine. My memories are blurry of what exactly happened after that, but somehow things had definitely gone wrong. I was soon sitting in the principals office and each noise I heard made me jump and scream on reflex, I had no control over my own actions. I was more scared then than ever before in my life; nothing seemed familiar or friendly and I could barely make sense on up or down.

The principal had managed to coax me out of the ball I had curled into and offered to take me for a walk, something I accepted happily as I craved for a sense or normalcy.

It wasn't to long after that that Mum arrived and took me home. She seemed upset and angry, something that I can now understand was because she was scared just like me. At home though nothing seemed to get better and soon I was full on hallucinating; my whole vision covered in spectral images that seemed to pulse in time with my rushing heart.

Thankfully Mum realised soon that I was having a hypo; or more accurately hypoglycaemia, where there was not enough sugar in my blood for my brain and body to function properly. It was the first hypo that I can remember but I'm sure that the memory will stay with me for many years.

In the years since then I went from having my Mother injecting my insulin to injecting myself, I went through a phase where I stopped injecting myself simply because I wanted to be 'normal', but Mum stopped that one pretty quickly and I never tried again.

I had learnt later on that when I was first diagnosed with Diabetes my Dad almost left my Mum because of it. Craig Baldwin is my step Father but he is the only Father I have ever had, something that I would never change. It was because my Mum fell in love with him that we ever moved to Tasmania, but me getting Diabetes was a harsh blow for him. He had lost a cousin whom he was very close with due to Diabetes and at first he hadn't thought he would be able to deal with the thought of loosing someone else he cared about. I never knew it then, but the day that Dad came in with a large fluffy bear for an Easter present was the day that he had decided that he would stay with Mum and me.

Around the time I was twelve or so I became very unstable with my Diabetes and I ended up in hospital again with a severe condition called Diabetes Ketone Acidosis, or DKA for short, it was an extreme build up of sugar in the blood. I had spent the last few days throwing up and I was severely dehydrated by the time I was rushed to hospital.

Mum was told that if she had waited another day or so to take me in that I could have died.

So began a very long few years in which I was constantly in and out of hospital, causing myself and my family pain each time I suffered another DKA. It was a painful experience, but I also believe that it helped make me who I am today.

I met a range of people during my multiple visits, some whom I doubt I will ever meet again, others who I will always remember. One child I met only had to spin around on the spot to break her bones. Literally, all she had to do was take one wrong step and the bones would snap; they were just that brittle. Another child had problems with her blood and had to have many blood transfusions. There were babies in there that caused my heart to ache by how sick they were.

It was during those years that my little sister Mahalia was born. There will only ever be one time that I will be glad I went to hospital and that was because it likely saved my sisters life.

She had been ill; coughing until she would throw up and pass out in my Mother's arms, but the local doctors would simply say that it was a cold and nothing was wrong. It took me once again having a DKA and going to hospital for anyone to notice how sick she was. A nurse had walked past one night and heard Mahalia having another coughing fit. She was admitted along with me instantly for Whooping Cough.

Aside from the DKA with too much sugar, I had also suffered seizures from loosing to much sugar in my blood too quickly. There have only been 4 seizures to date, but they are harsh and usually mean that my tongue is too sore to eat properly with for days.

It has now been two years since my last hospital trip and eventually I was able to convince Mum that I was stable enough to leave home. I am now completely independent in the managing of my condition, but there is rarely a day that goes by that I don't think about how I got where I am now, or how I became the person I am now.

Strangely enough I don't regret what happened, nor do I want to change it. For me it is now just another day to day task, something that I am still trying to refine and most likely always will. There are moments when it still scares me, and there are times when I wonder if I will even wake up the next morning.

However I know that I can only keep living and moving forward and try to make the best out of what I have. I think, to some extent, that I am able to better value what a life means from being to close to loosing my own on a few occasions, but I also know that I will never fully be able to understand life either.

I hope that maybe, just maybe, one day my experiences will help others. Besides, there is also the added bonus of no longer being afraid of needles, right?

Sherelle Bowron- 21/08/2012