It was the later part of
October in the year 2000 when my wife and I noticed our 15 month old
son Wyatt, had began to loose weight. He also had developed a
continual thirst and was urinating so heavily that every hour and
half we were changing a saturated, dripping wet diaper. We notice
that Wyatt was so thirsty that he literally was begging for water by
going to the fridge and pointing at the water dispenser every half
hour and drank two to three glasses full, along with a glass of
juice. We figured that is why we are changing him so much because he
was drinking all the time, but why was he drinking so much. We made
the comment to each other that we had thought this was a early
symptom of diabetes, but we figured he was much too young for that.
We assumed that even juvenile diabetes didn't start until 4 or 5
years of age. After a few days of this, we took Wyatt to the doctor
and he ran a urine test that came back negative for any sugars so we
ruled out the diabetes, or so we thought.
A few days passed and Wyatt was not feeling any better, still
needing a lot of liquids and urinating more frequent then usual. We
felt something was up and returned him to the doctor. The first time
all they did was a urine test, and with all that he was drinking the
sugars were being flushed away with the large amounts of liquids. We
asked the doctor if he would order a blood test to rule out the
possibility of diabetes, so we were sent next door to the hospital
lab for the procedure. An hour went by when we received a phone call
from the Doctor telling us that the blood test came back positive
for high sugar amounts, and told us to rush Wyatt to Primary
Children's Hospital in Salt Lake City, an absolutely wonderful
place for sick kids and worth every donation you can afford. Seems
Wyatt's blood test showed his sugars extremely elevated and he
needed critical care.
We arrived in the emergency room of the hospital and soon were
informed that Wyatt's blood sugars were in the 700's and was
throwing a large amount of keytones. Not really understanding what
all that meant we asked "Ok… and that means?". Of which the
reply from the doctor was, "Your son is in the early stages of a
Diabetic onset, and your lucky, most children at this age are not
diagnosed until they have fallen into a diabetic coma". Thank
god for our persistence with the blood test.
From that moment on, my family was thrown into a different world
and our lives had changed forever.
Over the past days, Wyatt had become very dehydrated even though
he was drinking all the time and because of that, we watched as the
nurses used flashlights on the backs of his hands to find blood
veins large enough to insert an IV. Wyatt was given a slow drip of
Insulin along with hydrants to lower his sugars and avoid brain and
organ damage from the keytones. Once an hour for the next 24 hours
Wyatt's blood sugars were tested to make sure they were in control.
We spent 3 days in the hospital with constant checks of his blood
until it got to a safe level.
For those three days my wife and I were put into a crash course
in diabetes and carbohydrate management, also how to administer
insulin and count carbohydrates. We were lucky to have tried many of
the popular diets such as the "Atkin's diet" and "The
Zone" so we had a pretty good idea of what carbohydrate content
and keytones meant but for many others this has to be a shock. We
also were instructed that if we plan to keep Wyatt healthy we were
going to have to keep good records that will allow his doctor to
track patterns in his glucose levels, insulin and carbohydrate
intake.
Wanting to give the doctor whatever it took to better Wyatt's
condition, we kept very detailed records and we soon found that
managing all the details was a very large task. Also once we got the
records to the doctor, it took him and his nurse some time to
analyze and identify trends that would suggest change in protocol.
My trade for the past 20 years has been that of a software
engineer and I soon saw an opportunity to make this task simpler and
less time consuming by automating the record keeping and doing much
of the summarizing in a computer rather than with a pencil in the
doctors office. I will say that this process saves us hours at home
and each time I take Wyatt's reports to the doctor he is extremely
happy with the content. We spend less time in the office looking at
numbers and more time talking about Wyatt's health. I truly believe
that this system is a contributor, along with our care taking in
keeping Wyatt's diabetes in control.
I was also surprised and saddened to find that many people do not
keep very detailed records for their doctor. Without them, the
doctor is handicapped and his suggestions in change of protocol are
only educated guesses based on average people not on you or your
child's own patterns. And in a child's situation, the doctor is
unable to ask questions that they can with adults handicapping them
even more. Because of this I felt that if more people had access to
this system, they may be motivated to keep better records and it
just may make a few more people healthier. And even better, if the
system was free then there should be no reason not to try!
And with that thought came GlucoseOne.
I invite you all to try GlucoseOne and tell me what you like
about it, and possibly don't like. Give me, you and your doctor's
comments so I can improve the software and make it even better and
most importantly, hopefully help you stay healthy!
Good Luck and Best of health!
Bill Smelser
Founder - GlucoseOne
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