Selah Update

This blog won't be about Selah, but frankly, it's turned the BNS into mush as we all try to reassemble and assimilate the new rules.

What's happening is this: Selah's immune system has turned on her own body and is in the process of killing all the cells inside her that create insulin, the substance that helps to process sugar. Thanks to the attentiveness of Selah's mom, we were able to catch her body in the process of doing this. So Selah's body is still in the process of losing all its insulin-making cells. When they're all gone, they're gone.

In the "old days," diagnosis of diabetes would mean that the child was admitted for a few weeks into the hospital as the child and her family became accustomed to what was next. Today, the child goes home and there are a series of vital meetings with the diabetes clinic as they get you used to what is to come. Shots begin right away. Selahs was put on a rigid diet (rigid specifically about total carbohydrates) (you can find those on every label of food you find) and her blood sugar is monitored, recorded, and reported.

The hospital takes all this info and begins to see a pattern of how the kid will react to certain levels of carbs at certain times of the day. She'll end up with a more flexible eating arrangement capable of allowing for everyday life.

The blood test stick hurts more than the shot, and both are pricks. In a way, the hardest part is the constant nature of the sticks and shots, not the individual ones. In Selah's first ten days of pricks and shots, she's already acquired some bruises from what is and will be her daily routine.

Selah is doing ok. She lost a week of school and getting used to the rigidity of the diet along with catching up with the schoolwork has her a little frustrated and lost. And she keeps getting a lot of attention she isn't sure she wants or knows what to do with.

All Selah's family can tell you is that it's your prayers that has lifted and buoyed us through this time. We are strengthened by the positive realities of this disease -that it is treatable and manageable.

This life isn't about Selah and not about her family. But we are grateful that God loves us like it is. And we're going to keep trying to make it through because He wants us to.