Signs

When we moved to Temecula in 2006, we relocated because we wanted a better school for Elyce and an opportunity for Shane to change his career where we can afford to live on one salary. On August 28, 2009, Elyce had been sick and stopped wanting to eat. All those who know Elyce, know this is not something she would EVER do. So we knew there was something wrong. She was drinking lots of ice water, which she never liked drinking water period. I spoke to Elyce’s teacher, Hallie, that afternoon asking if she was eating at school, etc. Hallie confirmed that she wasn’t eating as much as she would normally eat and suggested that I get her checked for diabetes. Hallie mentioned her friend had similar symptoms and it turned out she had diabetes. I took Elyce to the doctors and next day was waiting on the results, when Elyce wanted to throw up after drinking an entire Jamba juice. Shane was at the fire station and I was alone. I started panicking and decided to call the doctor. As I was talking to someone trying to find my doctor, the other line rang and it was the nurse calling me. The nurse said she received Elyce’s test results and her blood sugar the day before was 789. She said, I need you to take her to emergency right away. I started crying and panicking and told her, I don’t know where emergency is at. She told me where to go and off I went crying and trying to get a hold of myself, while trying to get a hold of Shane. It never fails that of all days, Shane left his phone at home and I had to go through it to try to figure out where to reach him. Go figure he had the station’s number under a person’s name and thank goodness I remembered that guy’s name. So I get a hold of him and am hysterical and he tells me to calm down and he says he is on his way.

After a 5 day stay in the hospital to get her acidosis out of her system and sugar levels back to normal, we went home to try to manage this diabetes we knew nothing about. I questioned the fact of being able to move forward with Stephanie’s and Noe’s adoption that was scheduled to be finalized in October. My baby girl Elyce had type 1 diabetes, and I couldn’t see myself being able to take this on and still adopt the kids. We decided to put the adoption on hold for a few weeks so we can decide what would be best for our family. If we decided not to move forward with adoption, they would be sent back to foster care, which was painful to even think how screwed up they would be. We were their 5th house and they were with us already for 1.5 years. After discussing this for a few weeks, we decided to move forward with adoption.

Seven months later, Elyce is diagnosed with Celiac. By then, diabetes was easy in the sense that we had her well controlled that she never required insulin with every meal. She only required 7 units of lantus at night, because she was still honeymooning. So now we are hit with another autoimmune disease we know nothing about. After hours of researching, we figured out how to make it work, so we thought.

After a few years of Shane volunteering in the fire station and finishing his academy, he started freelancing and substituting at the school to allow time to take Elyce to the doctor. Economy was slow and the firefighting jobs were on hold. Shane kept applying to different places and when he was offered an EMT job, the hours were not going to allow the time to take Elyce back and forth to the doctors, specialist, blood test, iron infusions, blood transfusion, endoscope, etc. Most men would struggle with this fact of not being the main bread winner, but I always said there is a reason Shane is the one with the flexible hours. As a Mom, I was always to anxious and Elyce would feed off of me. I’m the Mom who wanted to smack the nurse when she couldn’t get an IV in and Elyce is crying. I’m the Mom who panics with any bad health news and fights to get control at all times. So this worked for us, and how many people are fortunate to be able to live off of 1 income while still owning their home. Not too many these days, but we were.

So back to the present: Elyce has been gone for a month now and jobs start coming in. Shane is offered a full-time job with the schedule that works for us. If this wasn’t destiny, I don’t know what is. I’ve always believed that there is a purpose in our life and things fall into the place they are destined to be. . I believe Shane’s inability of finding a full-time job was for this very reason, to take care of Elyce. I THINK I’m starting to believe that we are all given our allotted time that we are going to be in this world and regardless of what is happening in our life………when our time is here, it’s here. In Elyce’s case, she was given 21 years, 2 months, and 18 days.

Everyone knows how many countless hours I spent trying to CURE my daughter, but everything I did and had the doctors do, was never enough. Internal Medicine, Gastroenterologist, Naturopathic doctors were all stumped and they couldn’t figure it out. We looked at other underlying diseases that can mimic some of her symptoms, but we were chasing our tails to no prevail. When I look at everything that has happened in the last 3 years, there were signs that we were headed this way. Everything seemed to be getting a little bit worse every time. I do believe it was God’s way of preparing us for the worst day of our lives. Death