I'm Tiffany - Brad's wife. Brad is the love of my life and I cannot wait to get him the freedom he so deserves. I thought I would start out with a little introduction about Brad. Many of you already know him, but I thought I would post this on my Facebook page so my friends and family could also follow along.
Meet Bradley!
Brad is a very sweet caring man. He loves his family and writing. He currently is an English Professor at St. Louis Community College - Wildwood. In Brad's spare time he loves to hike, swim and do anything active. Brad is a go with the flow kind of guy and is an excellent Daddy to his daughter Sabrina. He is also a Type 1 Diabetic.
Brad was diagnosed in February of 1987 with Type 1 or Juvenile Diabetes. It was a shock as there wasn't anyone in Brad's family with Type 1. Life changed quickly for Brad, Phyllis and Gene. There were struggles with blood sugars from the start. Brad felt that if he let his blood sugars get too high, that he would die young. High blood sugars cause a lot of the complications you hear about, numbness in the limbs, problems with the eyes and other issues.
What they don't tell you about are the problems with the lows. Lows are simply awful. Your brain runs on carbohydrates. Your brain needs carbohydrates to function properly. So what happens when your blood sugar gets low? Your brain is deprived of the carbohydrates it needs and you become disoriented. You can shake violently or can have a seizure. It is like being drunk but horribly worse. Brad felt that he had to keep his sugars so low so he would not die.
While in college, Brad was in a horrible car accident from a blood sugar low. He still suffers from the car accident to this day. He had a brain injury and a collapsed lung. His blood sugar was below 50. A normal blood sugar range is between 80 and 120. Brad's sugars swing pretty bad between high and low. He can be 302 and then 34 within an hour. It is shocking how quickly his blood sugars can change. The doctors call this brittle diabetes. Any little change from his normal routine can make his sugars go crazy.
Diabeties at it's finest
The first time I met Brad he told me about his disease. I of course had heard of diabetes, but I never realized how much I would hate it. I have told people that I would not wish this disease on my worst enemy. It is expensive. Brad is currently on Insulin Pump Therapy. This means he has an infusion pump that will maintain the insulin levels in his body. There are two rates. A basil rate that give you insulin all the time that helps to maintain the sugars at normal levels through out the day. Then when you eat you have to check your blood sugar, calculate the number of carbs you are going to eat and then take insulin to cover them. This is called a bolus. The pump is neat in the fact it will take the number of carbs you are going to eat, the current blood sugar, the amount of insulin you have currently in your system and then calculate how much insulin you need to take to cover what you are eating and keep your blood sugar at a normal rate. If your blood sugar is lower, you will get less insulin to cover the amount of food you are eating and vice versa. The pump is amazing, but it also costs $6500 plus you have to have supplies like the infusion sites that attach to Brad's body. Fortunately insurance helps cover most of the costs. Then there is the test strips and the insulin. If you don't have insurance, I am not sure how people can afford all of these items. They are not cheap.
After the expense you have the fact of maintaining the sugars themselves. It is so hard. Poor Brad struggles with this disease. He feels like he is tethered to something he cannot control. There have been many times that I have woken up in the middle of the night because of how Brad is breathing, the fact he has not really moved, or just something that tells me that his blood sugar just isn't right. I will check it and it is below 50. So because he is sleeping, I can sometimes wake him and get him to drink a soda or eat glucose tablets. More often than not, I have to call the paramedics. They come out and give him an IV of sugar and go back to the station. There was a time when Brad's sugar got low and it was bad news. It was December of 2008. It was about 6pm and Brad's blood sugar was 24. He was violent. I left the room and called the paramedics. It took 6 guys to hold him down. He was kicking the police and fighting them. It was like he had super powers. I will never forget the look on my brothers face. It was so scary. To subdue him, they bent his finger back and broke a bone in his hand. They were able to get the IV started and his blood sugars back up. To this day, when the paramedic that broke his hand comes to the house, he apologizes to Brad. We have very awesome paramedics in the West County area. They are my personal heroes.
I am sure you are asking, "well how does his blood sugar get slow low without him noticing?" Well Brad has something called Hypoglycemic Unawareness. This means he cannot feel when his blood sugar is dropping. You or I would get a headache, or the shakes. Possibly be a little crabby or just feel like lead. Brad can be fine one second and then completely out of it the next. It just drops without any notice. It is like a silent attacker. It just gets him. This hypoglycemic unawareness has lead to the totalling of two cars and three car accidents since I have been with him. Medtronic makes a Continuous Glucose Monitoring System that we have tried. It again is super expensive and if you don't get the sensor in just right, the sensor is bad and you have to throw it away. The sensors only last for a maximum of 6 days. When you insert the sensor, your blood sugars have to be stable for 2 hours. That never happens. It was a nightmare system. So that didn't work out so much. Currently Brad's mom drives him to school and I will take him anywhere else when I am home from work. We all fear that he is living on borrowed time because of the many times he could have been killed in a car accident.
The Light At the End of the Tunnel!
Phyllis, Brad's mom, read an article in the JDRF (Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation) publication about Diabetic Alert Dogs. She called up Warren Retrievers and got the information. It was like opening our eyes to a whole new world. These amazing Labrador Retrievers sense lows and highs. They are 100% accurate and can sense a low or a high 20 to 40 minutes before it happens. This means that lows can be averted before they happen. These sweet dogs do not come cheap though. They are $20,000. Phyllis paid $1,000 to get his name on the list. We are so happy that Brad is going to get a new lease on life. He needs this so very badly.
Our hopes is to get this dog so we can have a piece of mind. We currently have animals in our home that we are going to have to find new homes for. This is important due to the fact that the dog has to use his or her sense of smell to detect the low or high. We are so sad to have to say goodbye to them, but we plan to find them homes that will love them like we do. Brad asked me the question if I was going to resent him since we had to find our furry babies new homes. This was my answer. I told him that I would never resent him for this. I am just as excited as he is. Of course I am going to be sad. Who wouldn't be. But, I really don't want Sabrina to be the 4 year old that has to call 911 because her daddy is passed out on the floor. I also never want to get the phone call that he has been killed in a car accident. The hope that this dog brings to our family is beyond words. I know that we have made the right choice and we are going to have such relief. The fact that my husband is going to have confidence again is all I need to keep me going.
Please bookmark this blog. As we go through the process of raising funds, I will post entries here. I hope that this blog will help other Type 1 diabetics to get the hope they need. Any questions can be posted here as well.
Here's to finding hope!
Tiffany Bates
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