The "die" in Diabetes

“Momma, what does that "die" in diabetes mean?”

I stared in the face of my beautiful five-year-old daughter and struggled for an answer.

“Oh honey, it doesn't mean die. Look, look, it's not spelled the same. It's d-i-a!!  Not d-i-e!  It's Greek and means "to cut in half" or something. It doesn't mean die like we use the word die. It's going to be okay, Riley. It is really going to be okay.”

I was lying. I had no idea what the prefix “dia” meant. It's actually taken straight from the Greek and means “through, throughout, completely” and “betes” means to pass through. But for an East Tennessean, “diabetes” is pronounced “die-a-beat-ease” with a heavy emphasis and twang on that “die” sound. Freshly home after being diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes, the constant harsh sound of “die” was very frightening for a 5-year-old girl and her Mom as we discussed our new reality.

And our little family wouldn't be just passing through this diagnosis. We would be living it day by day, week after week, one excruciating finger prick at a time. At that moment, when Riley asked me the meaning of the “die” in diabetes, she sat at our small kitchen table as I toiled to check her blood sugar for the first time and tried to determine how much insulin she would need with dinner. Her feet didn't reach the floor by several inches. She was just a little, little girl. I wouldn't allow her to speak as I struggled to count carbs, determine the amount of insulin her small body needed, pull insulin through a syringe with clumsy fingers and pierce her soft, baby skin with the delicate needle. I had never given anyone a shot in my life. And I didn't know it was going to be okay. All I knew was I was terrified.

Diabetes is an evil killer. Those gifted with the disease are swimming in sugar, but their body is starving to death. A chronic, lifelong disease, the National Diabetes Information Clearinghouse says Type 1 diabetes occurs when the pancreas cannot produce enough insulin to properly control blood sugar levels in the body.

Among Americans aged 20 years or younger, less than one-quarter of 1 percent (about 186,300 people) have Type 1 diabetes, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). According to statistics available at the CDC and National Institute of Health (NIH), in 2002-2003, 15,000 kids in the United States were newly diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes.  That's about 19 new cases per 100,000 kids. So medically speaking, my little girl won Satan's lottery. Nice.

Our first day home after Riley's diagnosis, we were alone with several shiny new packs of syringes; two different kinds of insulin, alcohol pads and more informational literature than a single, working mother could read. We were alone, a sick little girl, a scary diagnosis that sounded like death and fear gnawing at our heels. The kind of howling fear that claws up your throat, bursts through your mouth and tries to take over your household, your life, your soul.

Earlier in the week, on the third day of our four-night, five-day stay at the regional Children's Hospital, a nurse came in the room, checked Riley's blood and gave my daughter an insulin shot. Then she said to me, “Mom, what if you walk into the room and find her passed out. What do you do?”

My ex-husband and I had been taking educational classes all day. I stared at this nurse like a second-grader who hadn't done her homework and was suddenly standing on-stage in front of the entire school on parent-teacher night - without any idea of the correct answer. I panicked. “Insulin, I give her insulin.” Because wasn't insulin the magic potion that was going to keep my daughter alive? Wasn't insulin the elixir that would fix everything for a diabetic? Wasn't the answer ALWAYS insulin?

“No!” the nurse bellowed as she verbally body slammed me across the room. “You could kill her. You give her glucagon - GLUCAGON.”

She hustled out of the room as I realized, I could kill my baby because I was stupid, stupid, stupid. Because I couldn't keep a thought in my head except my sweet daughter was hurt and in pain and sick and there was nothing I could do to heal this wound. I had read once that a mother's job was to be a vessel for all the tears in the world. When your child cried, you let them cry and you became the place that holds all that pain and hurt. How could I be the vessel for these tears? Who was going to hold my tears? For a moment, I hated that nurse almost as much as I hated myself. But I'll give her this; I never confused insulin and glucagon again.