Diagnosis

Sunday night, I dreamt I was being called by the military for a mission.  I needed to report at a certain time and I needed to take special equipment--including these specific gloves--because I was going to be disabling bombs.

I was scrambling to get ready.  I was packing up everything and the reality of what I was going to be doing was sinking in.  I didn't know how to disable bombs.  Was I going to die?  Emma was coming with me and she already had her gloves but I couldn't find any.  I was going to go to the store and get some and Emma also needed me to return a basketball standard to her friends the Swensons.  Did I have time for that?!?

She had already (helpfully) loaded it in a pick-up truck for me.

I was looking at my email on my phone to try to figure out what time we needed to report for duty and my phone kept playing videos my siblings had taken of their kids singing or doing cute things and I couldn't make it stop and check my email.

In all that stress, I woke up.  I remembered at once all the things I needed to do and all the things I felt anxious about.  Then I remembered I didn't have to go disable bombs and I felt a rush of relief.

There were enough things in my real life to stress about.

Over the weekend, we finally confronted the fact that Mark had lost a lot of weight.  It seemed like he was a lot skinnier and he was eating enough for a small army so that should have been a red flag, but also he's a growing teenage boy so I wasn't too surprised he was eating so much.

On Saturday Adam happened to put an arm around Mark's shoulders.  He felt the complete absence of muscle mass.  That night, Mark wanted me to look at something on his back.  He took off his shirt, revealing protruding shoulder blades and ribs and all the bumps on his back from his spine.

He had lost a lot of weight!

Sunday he weighed himself and he was 150 pounds.  He remembered in late March, when he'd had a sinus infection and they'd weighed him at the doctor's office, he had weighed 160 pounds.

So I woke up worried on Monday and I made him a doctor's appointment.  At the doctor's office he weighed 149 pounds and they told us that in August he had been 196 pounds.

It turned out he was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes.  Since Enoch has diabetes I was sort of familiar with the symptoms and I knew that it was definitely in our genetic makeup.  So I wasn't completely shocked by the diagnosis, but I was sort of wrecked too.

We're still in the very early stages of figuring it all out and we are overwhelmed, but also encouraged.  There is a wealth of technology and information we have access to.  We have brains in our head and feet in our shoes.  We can figure it out.

Monday Stella called, after Braeden let her know.  Mark and I were both in the car when she called. "Mark," she said, "I'm on your team.  You have Mom and Dad and Brother and Sister, but you have me too."

And Stella on your team is no small thing.  She said if we ever have a medical question and need information in plain English, we can call her.  She also told Mark she wants him up to 160 when she comes for Braeden's wedding.  We'll try!

We've talked to my parents and Adam's mom and they all had good advice and encouragement.  I have the love and support of my siblings--with Enoch basically saying it was no big deal.  Included in   siblings I mean Jennifer.  If you ever need Adam and Emma and Braeden have all said to me in the past two days that they would do anything for Mark.  "Anything," they all emphasized.  And I believe them.

Yesterday I told Marianne I felt overwhelmed.  She said, "You can DO this!  You had ancestors who gave birth while they were crossing the plains!"

And she's right.

We got diabetes from some of those ancestors, but they were tough.  Their blood is in my veins.

(Also, I don't have to go on a military mission to disable bombs.  There's that.)

Here's a picture of Mark last October followed by one Braeden took yesterday:

Braeden had taken him to Rancheritos for lunch.  Mark only ate one burrito though.  "That's a change," Braeden said.  Poor kid has been starving.  No wonder he's been eating so much.