Happy New Year!

 As we enter the Chinese New Year, there are many things I’ve been doing to prepare for our upcoming trip to China.  I’ve been researching the country, travel tips, touring ideas, and shopping.  I have also been searching for other elementary participants to connect with, integrating multicultural activities into my classroom and having my student prepare projects about our culture to share.  My mind has been so consumed with all things Flat Classroom, China and getting ready to go, I never even saw the train coming until it smacked into us.  My 15 year old daughter had been complaining of being really thirsty for the past few weeks and we discarded it as the dryness in the air, accompanied with basketball and volleyball workouts.  That is until last week when she came home sick from school Monday with a headache and then again on Tuesday with the same symptoms.  She was very tired and having some dizziness, so we made a doctor appointment at our local family practice.  They tested her for several things, thyroid, mono, etc and her blood glucose came back at 653 and her A1c was 13.7 along with large ketones in her urine.  They gave us a copy of her labs and asked that we get in the car and drive her to the emergency room at the University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics about an hour away because they had the best pediatric endocrinology department in the area.  They admitted Dayton and she was diagnosed with type 1 Diabetes.   So now we are in the process of adapting to a new lifestyle, or life support system as they call it, of counting exact numbers of carbohydrates for each meal, checking blood glucose levels, and giving insulin injections.  It has been extremely overwhelming and I’ve had to stop at several instances and just take deep breaths.  Dayton has been absolutely amazing and is adjusting so well and I am so proud of her.  However, with the beginning of this Chinese New Year, the life of this full-time teacher, graduate student, and single-mom just got even more interesting and we will be starting a new life along with this new year. 

The Juvenile Diabetes Reseach Foundation is close to a cure and you can help with this by donating on Dayton's behalf at the following link:  SUPPORT ME!