Halfmoon Bay mother of two Krystin Clark wants everyone to know the signs and symptoms of diabetes because she didn't know them and it almost cost her nine-year-old daughter Rowan her life.
"One Monday morning she was just zombie-like and wouldn't eat her cereal or get ready and I remember yelling at her trying to get her attention and gently jostling her and she was still just zombie-like, which was terrifying," Clark said, noting Rowan was six at the time.
She called the nurses' hotline and was asked an odd question that ultimately helped save Rowan's life -"does her breath smell like rotten fruit?"Clark checked and confirmed the odd smell, which, in combination with the other symptoms Rowan had been displaying, meant her daughter was diabetic and in need of urgent care.
"Her blood sugar levels were so high she had gone into something called diabetic ketoacidosis, where the body is literally poisoning itself," Clark said. "That's how a lot of kids are diagnosed, and unfortunately there are a lot of kids who aren't diagnosed until after they pass away because ketoacidosis is fatal."
Rowan was soon rushed to Children's Hospital as the family lived in Mission at the time. On the way there she started hallucinating and losing consciousness.
"Her blood is supposed to be anywhere from between six to 12 mmol per litre, and when she was admitted to Children's Hospital she was in the 70s and that's enough to send most people into a coma."
The horrible ordeal is something Clark wants to spare other families.
"In hindsight it started so much earlier than when we caught it and it was just written off as being the flu or something else," Clark said. "One of the symptoms is extreme thirst, and of course this happened during a heat wave, so of course she was thirsty, we were all thirsty and then one of the other symptoms is excessive urinating. Well, if you just drank the equivalent of an aquarium full of water, of course you're going to have to go to the bathroom."
Other symptoms of diabetes include weight change, extreme fatigue or lack of energy, blurred vision, tingling or numbness in the hands or feet, frequent or recurring infections and cuts and bruises that are slow to heal.
Rowan had most of these symptoms leading up to her hospital visit. Clark had taken her daughter to see two separate doctors in an effort to figure out what was going on, but diabetes was never thought to be a cause, and therefore it was never tested for.
"I just want to let other parents know that if they see these symptoms, please do not let it go. Make sure you have the testing, because it can so easily be camouflaged as something else," Clark said.
Rowan ended up needing to stay in the hospital for a week while doctors got her blood sugars under control. She was diagnosed with type one diabetes, which means her pancreas is unable to produce insulin -the hormone that controls the amount of glucose in the blood. She must wear an insulin pump at all times and carefully calculate her sugar intake.
Only about 10 per cent of people with diabetes are type one. There are nearly nine million diabetics in Canada and the rest of them have type two diabetes.
Type two occurs when the pancreas doesn't produce enough insulin or the body can't use it properly.
If left untreated diabetes can result in heart disease, kidney disease, eye disease, nerve damage, impotence and, in severe cases, death.
November is National Diabetes Awareness Month and Nov. 14 is World Diabetes Day. To increase awareness on that day, Rowan's school (Halfmoon Bay Elementary) will have students sporting blue, which is the colour of diabetes awareness.
Another student with type one diabetes attends Gibsons Elementary School and they plan to support her in the same way.
To learn more about diabetes go to www.diabetes.ca. For more on type one diabetes specifically, visit www.jdrf.org.
