I think that every parent hopes and prays that their children will never have to be stricken with any type of illness or disease, especially one that has no known cure.  For my husband Jason and I those hopes and prayers came crashing down on March 31^st 2006, when our 3 year old little girl, Madison was diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes. 

We had noticed for several weeks that Madison was not acting like her normal self.  She was crying for something to drink even when she had just finished drinking a lot. She was wetting the bed a lot, losing weight, and sleeping a lot more than usual.  So we decided to take her to her pediatrician.  We told him about all of our concerns and Madison's symptoms.  Dr. Woods, her pediatrician, also being diabetic, new those symptoms all to well.  He said that all the symptoms we explained where those of a diabetic, so he sent us right over to the hospital to get blood work and a urinalysis done.  It was no longer than an hour later and he was calling us back.  When I saw that number on our caller ID I knew that something terrible was wrong.  My husband took the call and from the look on his face I knew the results of her blood work.  My daughter had diabetes.

The doctor told us that her glucose level was 520 and that we need to go straight to Devos Children's Hospital immediately.  That ride from Muskegon to Grand Rapids seemed like the longest ride of my life.  When we finally arrived at the hospital Madison was given numerous finger pokes and insulin injections to lower her blood sugar level. She was crying, I was crying, it was not a good day at all.  We went through hours of training to learn how to properly take care of Madison and her diabetes.  We had to learn everything from how to check her blood sugar and give her insulin injections to carb counting.  It was all very overwhelming, we are just glad that we caught it in time and she got to come home with us that same night, where she began her life as a diabetic child.  The first few weeks following her diagnosis were very hard to adjust to, we were all very angry, wondering why our baby girl had to get this disease.  It just didn't seem fair.  We had to face the harsh reality that life just wasn't fair.  We came to the conclusion that we needed to crawl out of that dark hole we were in and do something about it.  I sought advice and support through JDRF volunteers.  I asked them what we could do to help.  They introduced us to the walk to cure diabetes.  We decided to form a family team known as Madison's Cure Team.

We participated in the 2006 Lakeshore walk.  Our whole family really enjoyed raising money and walking, we felt like this was our way of contributing to the search for the cure.  We plan on walking every year until we find the cure we are all anxiously awaiting.

Madison just turned 4 and also just switched over from injection to an insulin pump, only five months into her diagnosis.  She likes her pump much better, but still hates having diabetes.  She also loves to draw, read books, and play with her friends at preschool.

Madison said to me just recently, "Mom we walked and walked, and we still couldn't find a cure; we need to keep looking so my diabetes can go away."  I agree, our family hopes that one day a cure is found so millions of people will not have to suffer with diabetes or its complications any longer.

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