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HEALTHY LIFE: DIABETES
November 11, 2012
PAMPLIN MEDIA GROUP: JAIME VALDEZ
Sean Rutherford, 8, was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes earlier this year —
changing the life of her family forever. The Rutherfords keep a test kit at home,
in Sean’s backpack (inset), and at her school.
By BARBARA SHERMAN
Pamplin Media Group
T
he lives of Tenetia and Ab-
dul Rutherford changed
forever Jan. 12, 2012, when
their 8-year-old daughter,
Sean, was diagnosed with Type 1 di-
abetes.
“Our lives were turned upside
down,” Tenetia said. “It’s been life-
changing.”
That change started slowly but
then quickly picked up speed.
Abdul explained, “We started see-
ing signs about threemonths earlier
that indicated something was going
on.”
Tenetia added, “Then Sean’s ap-
petite increased abnor-
mally, like overnight, and
she was thirsty all the
time. Before, it was hard
to get her to eat. About
twoweeks before shewas
diagnosed, the symptoms
really changed. She start-
ed peeing in her bed —
because we now know
there was so much sugar
in her urine — and sleep-
walking. She would roam
around the house at night
and be out of it.”
Abdul said that he
stays up later than Tene-
tia, Sean and their 3-year-old daugh-
ter Amira, and one night in January,
he was watching TV when Sean
walked in.
“I said, ‘Sean, go back to bed,’ but
she wandered into the kitchen and
then into the bathroom,” he said.
“She was sweating and clammy. Te-
netia woke up and checked her bed,
and it was wet. By then Sean was
conscious, and she didn’t remember
walking around.
“I put in all the symptoms online,
and they came up as diabetes. I did
this assessment where you answer
questions, and it gave diabetes as
the cause. We took her to her pedia-
trician the next day, and a prelimi-
nary blood test showed her blood
sugar level at 600. We drove her
right to Legacy Emanuel Children’s
Hospital.”
Tenetia continued the story: “Nor-
mal blood sugar levels are 80 to 180.
Her blood sugar level was 800 by the
time we got to the hospital. They
were all set up for us and ready to go.
A doctor said she could have gone
into a diabetic coma if we hadwaited
any longer.”
Sean was in the hospital for a
week, and both Abdul and Tenetia
took time off from work to be with
her, plus they tookmandatory diabe-
tes education classes, which they
continue to do once a month.
The Tigard couple missed a lot of
work in the first weeks and months
after Sean got diagnosed as they de-
veloped their new “normal” and got
others in her life up to speed.
Tenetia said they felt over-
whelmed with all the information
they had to absorb and how literally
every carb that Sean ingests has to
be counted to determine the amount
of insulin she needs.
“There is a carb-to-insulin ratio,”
Tenetia said. “It’s an equation you
must figure out to know how much
insulin you have to give, and there
are different ratios for breakfast,
lunch and dinner.”
After Sean’s week in the hospital,
she spent another week at home be-
fore she went back to Templeton
Elementary, where she is a third-
grader.
“Wemet with the school principal,
(one-day-a-week) school nurse and
the office staff because they have to
administer the shots,” Abdul said.
They also had to train the staff at
the Montessori school where Sean
sometimes goes after school as well
as Tenetia’s mom, who lives with
themand helps take care of the girls.
There had previously been a cou-
ple of students with diabetes at Tem-
pleton, “but Sean was the first one at
theMontessori school,” Tenetia said.
“We have to keep ourselves avail-
able all the time in case someone
calls with a question or problem,”
Abdul said. “We’re on watch 24/7.”
The first two months after Sean
was diagnosed, Abdul and Tenetia
set their alarms to ring at 2 a.m. to
check her blood sugar level. Now
they wake up automatically.
“It can’t drop too low during the
night,” Tenetia said. “If it gets too
low, she won’t wake up.”
Sean’s blood sugar level must be in
the normal range before she can go
to bed, and her night-time dose of in-
sulin is a time-releasedmedication to
last longer.
If her blood sugar level is too high
at bedtime, she is givenmore insulin;
if it’s too low, she is given
a certain number of carbs
every 15 minutes.
“I won’t give her can-
dy,” Tenetia said. “She
gets apple juice or some-
thing like that unless it’s
an emergency. One time I
was at Fred Meyer with
her, and she started to feel
faint. I grabbed anOrange
Crush and had her drink
it in the aisle. She can feel
the effects of a low blood
sugar level but not high.”
The family has to plan
ahead — both meals and
activities.
“Any type of physical activity
makes the blood sugar level go down,
so Sean usually has a snack before
she does them,” Abdul said. “But
what if she gets sick and throws up?
How do we know how much insulin
we should give her? I’m sure Tenetia
does her prayers, and I do too, that
Sean won’t get sick.”
As Sean gets older and goes
through puberty, her insulin require-
ments will change.
“They said they didn’t even want
to talk about pubertywith us,” Tene-
tia said. “We have tons of books on
all aspects of diabetes.
“When people are first diagnosed,
they go throughwhat they call a hon-
eymoon phase, and Sean’s body is
still producing some insulin — it is
still compensating. But in the last
week, it’s been a little haywire—her
blood sugar got up to 200.”
■
A Tigard couple faces a steep learning curve after their daughter’s diagnosis
Living with Type 1 diabetes means
MAJOR LIFESTYLE CHANGES
CONTINUED/ Page 7