On the outside, I have always been an active, healthy, able-bodied woman (daughter, wife, mother of six, etc…). But as this stay-at-home order spread across our planet, something was simmering within me. I hadn’t felt right since this lock down began.
What I didn’t tell anyone was that I was terrified. Somewhere, deep down, I knew something was horribly wrong with me. I was hot. I was freezing. I was confused, yet I was coherent. I would lay still at night, but legs were restless. My mouth was so dry, an unquenchable thirst. I would go to speak and my words would fail me. Time had flown by since this pandemic began and yet it was standing still. I had lost 35 pounds over the past 2 months, and I knew I looked like a character from The Walking Dead.
You see, if I had to go to the Emergency Room, I feared what I might encounter; imagining a war zone of people sick with COVID-19, dramatically dying all around me.
The morning of April 28, I was more exhausted than I had ever been. My oldest daughter, Makenna, met me at the bottom of the stairs and proclaimed “Mom, I’m taking you to the hospital.” Out of breath, I attempted to calm her by explaining I had a telehealth appointment that afternoon, and that I would be ok. She defiantly proclaimed “Nope. We’re going right now! Grama is on her way, she will meet us there.” I proceeded to the bathroom and threw up. She was right. We had to go now.
The series of events that follow, I recall like an out of body experience. Arriving at the ER, Makenna left me, slowly getting out of the passenger seat, to inform the ER staff that I would need a wheelchair. A nurse met me in the parking lot and rolled me into the surprisingly EMPTY waiting room. EMPTY? REALLY? WHAT? Where were all of the sick and the dying the news had been warning us about for the past 2 months?
My mom arrived as I was giving ER intake my name; she quickly took over for me, described my symptoms, and shared my family’s health history. This led to some blood work, which led to a urinalysis, which led to being admitted, which led to a welcoming, yet, frantic and concerned nurse, who immediately hooked me up to IV fluids.
I recall hearing my mom be told that I was VERY sick. I remember the nurse telling me that if I had waited any longer, I would have been in a coma.. I remember someone gasping and saying my blood had the acidity of a battery. I remember saying goodbye to my mom, as they rolled me to the ICU. I remember waking up in the ICU, to a doctor telling me I was lucky to be alive. I spent the next five nights there, no visitors, no flowers… alone, except for the wonderful ICU nurses, doctors, and support team.
Until I was admitted to the hospital, I was unaware that what had made me so sick was life-threatening Diabetic Keto Acidosis (DKA). My body’s autoimmune system had mistakenly attacked and killed all of the insulin-producing beta cells in my pancreas, which cannot be repaired. I am now a Type 1 Diabetic… My new normal.
For the rest of my life, I must inject insulin into my body several times a day and carefully monitor and regulate my blood sugar… to stay alive.
This is NOT a lifestyle disease or something I can change with diet and exercise. It is not contagious or caused by sugar, or preventable, or curable.
I share my story to encourage those, who may have any one of the symptoms I did, to not wait to go to the ER or get in to see your doctor ASAP. Don’t wait and end up, like me, an unintended consequence of this pandemic. Hospitals are not overloaded with COVID patients, contrary to the news reports. They saved my life … I am grateful and blessed.
Winde Bekins Chavez 
