On that day of July 13, 2007.....

This was two days after Brady was released from
the pediatric ICU in 2007.

-On that day of July 13th, 2007 Brady had been 2 for 26 days and lost 5 pounds within the last 3 weeks.

-On that day Ryker was 5 months old and had just stopped nursing.

-On that day Brady was having a donut and threw it up and his eyes seemed to go in and out of focus a lot.

-On that day I was changing his diaper at least once every hour and a half.

-On that day and every day for three weeks up until his diagnosis he was so thirsty that all he wanted was milk instead of food.

-On that day he was very lethargic and didn't respond well to questions we would ask him.


-On that day we put him to bed and his breathing was strange and shallow.

-On that day we drove him an hour and a half at 10:00 at night to take him to the ER.

-On that day in the ER the nurses were shocked at how much he weighed which was only 22 pounds.

-On that day he hardly responded to all the poking and prodding the nurses and doctors did to him to find out what was wrong with him.

-On that day I could tell something was very wrong because the doctors and nurses looked so worried.

-On that day they did blood work, a chest x-ray, and were trying to decide if he was too sick to be at their hospital or if they should fly him to Children's in Spokane.

Brady after the Run for Pennies at school.

On that day our lives completely changed when we found out our 2 year old little boy was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes.  We had to learn how to give him insulin injections, count carbs,  and check his blood sugar to keep him alive.  I knew that it would never get easier but I knew we would get better at dealing with the day to day struggle of having a child with diabetes.  On this day of May 29th, 2012 I feel support and love from our family and community.  Our families helped raise $845 for Team Brady's Bunch for the JDRF walk in Seattle.  Brady's teacher (Shannon Sheneman) and school nurse (Pam Cleveringa) organized a JDRF walk at two different schools and collected  close to six hundred dollars worth of pennies.  This makes me feel like we are not in this fight alone.  That I have two other people who understand how hard it is to manage Brady's blood sugar numbers and help me take care of him and that I live in an awesome community that cares enough about my son and a cause to raise $500 bucks for a cure to this ridiculous disease.  And that I have a family that will step up and help when one of us needs it, this makes me feel proud to be a part of  my family.  All in all, I'm a pretty lucky girl.

Brady next to the cute sign his teacher made for the walk.

  Soon we will be launching a video and fundraising event to raise $18,000 for a diabetes alert service dog that will help us detect low and high blood sugars Brady might be experiencing.  I've already put a link on the right side of the blog for people to donate money to our family dog.  We've already put $1000 dollars down as earnest money for the dog and we will hopefully be getting the dog within the next 6 months.  We have 2 years to raise the $18,000 needed for the dog.  You may be wondering why this dog costs so much and the reason is not only will the dog be able to detect low and high blood sugars in Brady but the dog will eventually be able to get Brady juice for a bad low and dial 911 on a special device.  We will get the dog when it is around 4 months old and then we will be in touch with a trainer every week through Skype as well as having a trainer fly out to our house every three months to check on the progress of the dog.  Brady is beyond excited for the dog.  We were a little apprehensive at first since it  makes it a little more evident that Brady has a special medical condition but all the kids at school already know that Brady has diabetes and it really isn't a big deal to them.  So stay tuned, I'm almost done with the video and I think it's my best one yet.  And a big thank you to everyone for their support.  We couldn't ask for better people in our lives, well maybe richer, but certainly not better quality.  ;)