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Andrew’s Story
Please read this story on when Andrew was diagnosed with Juvenile Diabetes We want everyone to know that your story, if your child has diabetes, is similar to ours and that you are not alone.
It was a normal week at our house that ended up with Andrew’s sister Ali getting the stomach flu. If you have kids you know that if one kid gets the stomach flu you are usually guaranteed that the other kids will get it too. Within a day or so we noticed that Andrew's thirst had increased to the point that he was drinking huge amounts of milk in record time. He then began to vomit which we thought was the stomach flu passed to him from his sister. His thirst was still very high and we noticed that his diapers were so full of liquid that they would fall off from the weight. Then while my wife was giving him a bath she realized that he seemed thinner than usual. This prompted us to take him to the doctor thinking that this was just more than the stomach flu (My wife had already thought that it could be diabetes but didn’t want to believe that was what it was since he was just to little to have this). Andrew continued with his excessive thirst and vomiting right up to the point we went to the doctors office. I can’t believe it to this day but I even gave him a juice box while we waited to see the doctor. At this point we had noticed that Andrew was really acting strange and "out of it". The doctor then asked for a urine test and instantly we found out that he had sugar in his urine that was off the charts. The doctor told us that he needed to be rushed to the Children’s Mercy Hospital immediately and gave us a choice of either calling an ambulance or going ourselves. He recommended going ourselves to get him there faster. We had now just gone from having a child we were hoping just had a bad case of the stomach flu to a child with very high blood sugar and now we were rushing him to the Hospital for treatment. Usually a visit to Children’s Mercy Emergency room requires a long wait before you get seen, but as soon as we arrived he was rushed back for treatment. Still not believing this could be happening to our child we hoped everything would turn out all right. Then the doctor or nurse walked into our room and told us that Andrew has Juvenile Diabetes (Type I). His blood sugar was in the 900’s and he was in full ketoacidosis. They could not believe he was still conscious. Wow what a bombshell. Now what. Well we spent the next four days in the hospital nursing Andrew back to health and getting the crash course on insulin, daily injections, diet tips, and the realization that diabetes will cut Andrew’s life short by 15 years.
This story is why we started this web site. We decided not to sit around and wait for someone else to cure diabetes. It is our goal to help fund research to our utmost ability and support Andrew and others cope and live with this disease.
We hope this helps,
Brad, Steph, Ali, and Andrew Stott 
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