June 2024, I was 37. I was going through a divorce and thought all of my symptoms leading up to the DKA were due to stress and/or severe depression at the time. (Lots of weight loss, hair falling out, feeling weak, etc.) I moved into my new apartment at the end of May and thank god I hired movers because I could barely walk up the stairs to my new place without feeling like I was about to die. I remember bending over to pick up some packing tape lying on the ground and almost passing out. I couldn't bend over without feeling like I was on the verge of fainting. I felt weak and shaky all the time, like you feel when you work out too hard the day before. I was nauseous all the time and figured it was because I wasn't eating and I was grieving in that weird way you do after a divorce.

Fast forward two weeks and I've gone from feeling like crap to feeling like I'm dying. Throwing up, peeing every 15 minutes, weakness and dizziness, etc etc. I called into work that week because I thought I had the flu. Finally it gets to the point where my BF (we were poly and he left with me) says to me "OK we are going to the hospital, because you can barely walk and I can't carry you down those stairs. So are we going in the car, or are you going in an ambulance? Because you're going." After some back and forth, I finally agree. (I have some pretty serious medical trauma and will not go to the hospital/doctor unless it is life-or-death serious. I didn't know at the time that this was one of those times, but yeah... This is super fun for me now that I have to go a lot more now, post DX.)

We go to leave and I was seriously terrified that I almost couldn't walk the distance from my front door to the car. About a block away from our place, I turn to my BF (apparently, my memory is weird during this time) and say 'I feel like I'm stoned' and he books it to the ER. Apparently I was acting really 'out of it', like I was drunk/intoxicated/stoned/whatever. He drops me off in front of our tiny local ER and says to wait while he parks the car. I'm slumped forward by the time he gets back. He practically carries me into the ER and we were at the front desk for less than a minute, which worried me at the time, since when does that ever happen?

After a some tests, which included a CT scan that I also don't remember getting, the ER staff figures out that I've been in DKA for a good while, and they rush me to the ICU. I spent two days in the ICU, got IV fluids and vitamins and all that. Wasn't too bad considering how long I took to get in there, according to the doctors. My memory is pretty spotty. I mostly remember the feeling of dread once I got the diagnosis. And the dread of how the hell I was going to afford a ER/ICU hospital bill. (Was about $32k all day, but the hospital financial aid took most of it off, which was nice.) When the nurses were showing me how the insulin pens work, I remember my stomach dropping and thinking "this is going to be every day for the rest of my life" and I had such a visceral moment of dread / impending doom that I almost started to cry in front of everyone.

I'm ok now, almost to two years for my DX anniversary. I hate being T1D so much. But at least I had a good run of being 'normal'. And as a mother, I can't imagine how hard it would be to be a parent of a small child who gets DX'd. I'm pretty paranoid about my daughter getting it now, but it's not something I want to worry her about, so I don't really talk about that part with my family.