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We all carry something. In this soulful and deeply human podcast, Marilyn Getas Byrne holds heartfelt conversations with people who’ve lived through the unthinkable—and made their way back to joy. These are real stories of pain, healing, and what it truly means to choose happy.
Today's episode of I Choose Happy is brought to you by the comfy wearable blankets that make life happier. Go to the comfy.com to get 20% off your first order by using the code I choose happy at checkout. The comfy, relax like you mean it.
Kristin:We went home thinking our life is going to change drastically. Poor us. This is gonna be horrible. A little girl that has diabetes, she's not overweight. Like, what what is happening to our lives?
Marilyn:Welcome to I Choose Happy, the show about what we carry and what sets us free. You'll hear stories about loss, hardship, and re claiming your joy. I'm Marilyn Giedis Byrne, and on the show today, a diagnosis of type one diabetes in a very young child can feel devastating and terrifying at first. But for a mother determined to figure it out, life can still feel full and happy for everyone involved. Kristen Meese was born in 1968 and grew up in the Bay Area.
Marilyn:She has been a successful elementary school teacher for decades, genuinely loving her job, being in the classroom, working with the kids, and helping them figure things out every day. As a teacher, noticing details became second nature to Kristen, and that's a skill that would make all the difference once she would become a mother. In 02/2001, she and her husband Steve welcomed their first and only child, their daughter Haley. From the start, Haley was curious, active, and easygoing. But when she turned three, Kristen started noticing signs that something wasn't right.
Marilyn:Haley had excessive thirst, she was using the bathroom frequently, and she was losing weight. Now those early warning signs led to a diagnosis that would change their daily lives, type one diabetes. Through all the challenges, Kristen leaned on her community, her family, and her own instincts to help Haley navigate this this new reality while still enjoying life as much as possible. It's normal for life to be chaotic with a three year old as many of us remember. But even as a toddler, Haley always seemed to go with the flow.
Kristin:She was always a a very easygoing baby, and, she loved being active with us. We're really social and always on the go, and she just fit right in. And she's a good little traveler, a good little sleeper. She was always up for a party. She's just a a ton of fun, and I've always just enjoyed my time with her even as, you know, those rough toddler years.
Marilyn:She is so much fun. I mean, she's so much fun today, and I could only imagine her, during those toddler years. And and what was your first clue that something was off physically with her?
Kristin:Funny that you asked that because there were many red flags right before she was diagnosed that, you know, your mommy instinct kicks in and says, oh, that doesn't seem right. Like, for example, she had a valent a Valentine party at her little preschool daycare place, and she got sick on the way home. She actually threw up in the car. And, I had asked her daycare provider, you know, what did you guys have? And they said, oh, they each had one cupcake, but they had all their other normal food.
Kristin:But she really ate the whole thing. She was really, really loving it and ate the whole cupcake. But for her to be sick like that, I was kinda like, oh, no. Maybe she's coming down with something. I wasn't sure.
Kristin:And then we had Easter at my mom's house, and she just looked thinner to me. Like, I had time to slow down and really spend time with her, and she looked thinner to me. And I noticed she was she would drink a glass of water in, like, three seconds flat and, like, an eight ounce glass of water. For a three year old, that's a lot at once.
Marilyn:Almost like she couldn't quench that thirst.
Kristin:Exactly. She She was not satisfied. And then she was using the bathroom a lot, and I thought, well, maybe she's got a UTI or something like that. So there were these little things along the way. And the the part that really, really caught my attention was the weight loss because she'd always, you know, been a good eater.
Kristin:And Mhmm. You know, when you can get a toddler to be still long enough to eat, she'd she'd eat and go and eat and go. She's always been really busy. She always had things to do, her books, her toys, her movies, all of that. So all those red flags were clues to me.
Kristin:So when she was diagnosed, although it was a shock, I kind of thought, oh, you know, those were warning signs the whole time.
Marilyn:Was there anything, that you noticed emotionally? Was she off, or was she seemingly irritable, or any change in her behavior or her, or her personality?
Kristin:Such a good question. Because a year prior, almost a year to the date, my dad passed away. And we were at his service with family, and she had this major temper tantrum. And I don't know if she was breeding off my emotions or what, but she did not wanna go down for her nap. And we had a lot of people over.
Kristin:And, you know, like I said, she loved to party, so she was being social. And I tried to get her to take her nap, and she was not having it.
Marilyn:She didn't wanna miss out on anything.
Kristin:No. And so she was kicking and screaming and just not wanting to listen. And I thought that's a little unusual for her. She's usually pretty easygoing. And there were, like, two other instances like that where she really reacted.
Marilyn:And I'm sure people would say, oh, you know, terrible twos or or and now she's coming into probably that was the year before. I'm guessing she was two.
Kristin:She was two going on three. Yes.
Marilyn:Yeah. And you could you could easily shrug that off to, oh, she's going through a developmental stage. And
Kristin:Yeah. Yeah. But looking back, I think it was her blood sugar and, a beginning of what was type one.
Marilyn:Wow. Okay. So you take her to the doctor. You you what got you to the doctor?
Kristin:I had a student teacher at the time, and she was kind of, you know, gradually taking over my classroom. She's also a very good lifelong friend. I've known her since she was eight years old, and she was student teaching in my classroom. And she's still teaching with me at at my site, which is a whole another story. Wow.
Marilyn:That's so great.
Kristin:I love her so much. She was student teaching in my classroom, and it gave me a little bit more free time and working on the computer. And I was kinda like, you know what? I'm gonna Google these symptoms Hailey's been having. And all these things about juvenile diabetes, which it was called then, came up.
Kristin:And I thought, woah. This might be real. And I told Steve, my husband, and he who has his his LVN and keeps it active, although he was in law enforcement.
Marilyn:And he was a medic in the military. Correct?
Kristin:He was. Yep. He was. Yeah. He was a corpsman with the Navy Marine Corps.
Kristin:So he was in denial about his little girl. Let me tell you. When I came home and said what I had found, he was like, no. No. No.
Kristin:I know it's a UTI. Let's make an appointment and get her in. So sure enough, got her an appointment, took her in, and she was sitting on my lap facing the doctor. So I'm holding her like this, and he did a finger stick on her. And he was like, oh, your daughter has type one diabetes just from that.
Kristin:I said, what is that? And to me, it was diabetes. I didn't know the difference between type one and type two, which many people don't. So he says
Marilyn:Very quickly, Chris, just real quickly, can you give people sort of the difference when little children are diagnosed with type one? If it's not hereditary, it can be caused by a stomach virus or, other type of virus.
Kristin:Oh, type one can be triggered by any kind of trauma to the body. Okay. Usually, it's a virus. For Haley, it was a staph infection. She had received a staph infection from my husband was working in prison at the time, and he was doing medic and health care for the inmates.
Kristin:And he somehow brought one home. And she we were at pizza one night and a good friend of mine picked Haley up and went to hug her, and she screamed out in pain. She had a little abscess in the middle of her back. We got her in the tub when we got home and basically drained it. It was really bad.
Kristin:And got her to the doctor, got her antibiotics, and it was that was another thing that had happened right before. That was another red flag.
Marilyn:Okay.
Kristin:You know, when we got her to the doctor that day, he had said, your daughter's blood sugar is in the four hundreds.
Marilyn:Woah.
Kristin:Which is dangerous.
Marilyn:Wow. And normal would be, what, around 85, ninety?
Kristin:Eighty five to a 120 is in the normal range. Okay. And so, you know, I'm thinking what's going through my head is, oh my gosh. We have to change our whole lifestyle. We have to get rid of all the sugar in the house.
Kristin:You know, she's gonna have to change her diet completely. And, they didn't really even know what to do with us then. And they sent us to the ER, and they gave her graham crackers and chocolate milk, which spiked her blood sugar even higher. And they said, well, we can't really help you now, but we're gonna send you to an endocrinologist down in Fresno tomorrow.
Marilyn:Okay.
Kristin:So we went home thinking our life is going to change drastically for us. This is gonna be horrible. A little girl that has diabetes, she's not overweight. Like, what what is happening to our lives?
Marilyn:Did you feel scared? Did you realize the potential risks and and the severity of of what was going on?
Kristin:The first thing I felt was fear. Yeah. Like, what did I do to cause this? How can I reverse this? This is my baby.
Kristin:Of course.
Marilyn:Yeah. You know,
Kristin:you you never want your baby to be sick. And I just I I was scared and fearful more than anything else.
Marilyn:And as parents, we always naturally initially take it on as what could we have done, where did we go wrong. I'm sure there was some of that going on too.
Kristin:Definitely. Yeah. For sure. That was tough. And then we met her endocrinologist.
Kristin:Her name was doctor Mary Simon. We drove down to Fresno and met her, and she was a godsend. She was sent from heaven. She is a type one diabetic herself and knows more about type one diabetes than anyone we've met along the way. She every new pump, every new invention, every trial she signs up, does it to herself.
Kristin:She is her own guinea pig. But she met us and said, snap out of it. You're gonna be fine. Things could be way worse. And we're like
Marilyn:What could be worse than this? Yeah.
Kristin:Yeah. So she educated us, and she said, listen.
Marilyn:Wow.
Kristin:Type one is different than type two. Type one is not caused by anything. It's it's basically in her makeup, and you didn't do anything to cause it, but the the staph infection could have triggered the type one. She was a carrier, and that triggered it. So I know that sounds kind of funny, but for some people, it's it is the flu, like you said, or it's a very bad virus.
Kristin:Or
Marilyn:Or could have a hereditary connection.
Kristin:Yeah. We've done studies, and and Steve is a carrier. He signed up for a trial and and found out that he was a carrier for type one, so he could have passed it on. Okay. We don't know that for sure, but that was just a trial that happened that we were involved with.
Marilyn:And one theory that came out of that.
Kristin:Yeah. Yeah. So we had a trip to Disneyland planned, like, three months after diagnosis. You know, we I She was diagnosed March 29 and I think we had it planned for spring break. I don't even think it was three months.
Kristin:It might have been three weeks. And so we're like, Oh, we're going to cancel the trip. We're not going to go. The doctors said, Doctor. Simon, Yeah, you're going to go and you're going to call me every day and you're going to be fine.
Kristin:You're going to have fun. And she needs to go to Disneyland. She was like, Are you crazy? And she said, Here's your syringes. Here's your insulin.
Kristin:She gave us two types, a fast acting and a slow acting. She showed us how to inject it, how to measure it, how to calculate
Marilyn:Mhmm.
Kristin:How much to give, which that was really scary to me because if you give too much or too little, it could be life threatening. So here I am with this medication that I have to give my daughter through a needle, which she hates.
Marilyn:Yeah. I was gonna ask you, how does she how did she initially deal with that? That must have been so scary for her and so hard for you.
Kristin:It was way harder on me than it was on her as as far as her reactions go. I think later in life, it bothered her more than it did then, because I remember her first few injections, and I'm drawing it up and just hoping and praying I did it right.
Marilyn:Yeah. Yeah.
Kristin:And say, Hailey, come on, because I had to do it every time she ate. Every time she put food in her mouth, she had to have insulin through an injection.
Marilyn:Did you have some sort of, like, when you're calculating this, how do you begin to calculate it?
Kristin:There's a formula. And Doctor. Simon, the first few times, we had to call her every time Haley ate, and she did this for all her patients. Every meal, every snack, she was available. And she made sure that it was right.
Kristin:And I'd say, Hailey, come on. We gotta do your shot in your tummy. That was her area of preference in her tummy. And she'd be like, hurry up, mommy. Hurry up.
Kristin:I wanna go play. Hurry up. So here I am with tears running down my face, devastated that I'm doing this, and she's just like, come on. I have things to do, mom.
Marilyn:Wow. So that could that can snap you out a little bit of following their lead.
Kristin:She's good. Her strength was there from name one. Wow. Her resilience.
Marilyn:And this doctor Simon, I mean, to to empower you and and to give you this sense I'm not, like, not maybe normalizing it, but definitely saying, okay. This is it. You're gonna get through this. Giving you
Kristin:have she's gonna have a normal life. She can do everything those kids can do, and then some.
Marilyn:Yeah. What a blessing.
Kristin:Oh gosh. She was definitely a blessing to us. So we show up at Disneyland, and we walk in, and there's a group, a special group, and all these adults with these kids who are paraplegic in their chairs. And it was like it hit us in the face. Like, wow.
Kristin:Okay. We, like, grabbed each other's hands, my husband and I, and said, we got this. We got this. It could be way worse. It was very it was a very, emotional moment at that time.
Marilyn:I can only imagine. How do you if I had to calculate something like that, I'm not, math is not my forte. I would be just scare I would just be questioning myself, I think. When you are a parent of such a young child, how do you did did doctor Simon help you guys figure out how to talk to her about it? How did you I mean, is it just like, hey, Haley.
Marilyn:This is what we need to do. Did you talk to her about the disease itself? How how did did you go about that initially?
Kristin:We explained everything every step of the way. Everything we were doing and why. We told her, your pancreas doesn't work. And that's the difference between a type one and a type two. In a type one, your pancreas does not work.
Kristin:It's an autoimmune disease. It's nothing the lifestyle did
Marilyn:Yeah.
Kristin:To cause this to happen. Type two is usually a lifestyle change or there can be triggers that happen to your health or diet, exercise. All those things can affect type two, which, you know, those can be fixed usually by lifestyle changes or medication. Mhmm. Type one cannot be reversed.
Marilyn:Yeah. You need insulin to survive.
Kristin:You need insulin to survive. Exactly. So they are, fully reliant on insulin.
Marilyn:Did you find that most people were ignorant about the two types of diabetes?
Kristin:Yes. And I understand that because I was until this happened to us. A lot of people don't know the difference. And when we would be out and about, you know, she after a year of giving injections, she was eligible for an insulin pump, which was a great change in our lives because of how busy she was and then how it could help us to not have to stop. But people would see her pump and say, oh, she can't have that.
Kristin:She can't she can't have a cupcake. I remember being in the grocery store and I'm putting maple syrup in our shopping cart and this man comes up and says, oh, she has diabetes. Right? She has a pop. And I said, yes.
Kristin:And he said, she can't have that syrup. And I said, sir, she needs this syrup to stay alive. She needs sugar to stay alive. She needs sugar in her diet. Because if her blood sugar is low, that's what we give her to get it back up.
Marilyn:When we come back, Kristen shares how life changed after Hailey's diagnosis, the routines and challenges that became part of every day, and the surprising ways her daughter's resilience has inspired not just their family, but their community. When I was going through cancer treatment, there were days when the fear and uncertainty felt overwhelming, to be honest. In those moments, the smallest comforts made all the difference. And just being able to wrap myself up in something soft and warm to feel held when I was scared, that was everything. And that's what the comfy is for me.
Marilyn:It's not just a wearable blanket. It's like this little reminder that you can breathe, you can pause, and you can feel safe. Whether it's treatment days, hard days, or just long days, you throw it on and let yourself exhale. You can get yours at thecomfy.com. And if you use our code, I choose happy, you'll get 20% off your first order.
Marilyn:Wearable blankets that make life happier. The comfy, relax like you mean it. So far, we've heard about the early signs, the daily routines, and all the ways Kristen keeps Haley safe. Now let's get into the real life stuff. What happens when she's out on her own?
Marilyn:What do you do with a kid? Do you keep Skittles in their pockets? What do you what do you do in case they're out on the playground, they start to notice their own symptoms? Or do you and do you tell friends? Do you tell do you educate the children she's with?
Marilyn:I'm sure her teachers and and other people in her life along the way had to know what to look for.
Kristin:Yes. All of those things. So she Skittles were her drug of choice, I should say.
Marilyn:Okay. She and I have something in common.
Kristin:She also loves fruit snacks, which is a great thing to keep because, you know, you can keep the little package in your pocket and not have them get all messy.
Marilyn:But Yeah.
Kristin:Yeah. So she did that. She we would meet with her teachers every school year before school started and and let them know, you know, this is what to look for. We gave little kits to keep in the classroom. She had one in her backpack.
Kristin:She just always has to have snacks and juice things with her to bring her blood sugar up. She has to constantly check her blood sugar. And then when her blood sugar's high, she needs to drink water. So she had a whole plan in place.
Marilyn:Are the symptoms similar when it's high and it's low? So is it hard to know? You just have to test. Or the the pump or the or the monitor would would tell you?
Kristin:The pump does not tell you your blood sugar. So you still we still had to do finger sticks at that point Okay. To find out what her blood sugar was. The CGM came later, which is the continuous glucose monitor. That will read blood sugars constantly, which a lot of athletes are using them now.
Kristin:People that are not type one or type two diabetics are wearing them just for overall health, which is awesome.
Marilyn:How old was she when she was able to to have that?
Kristin:Oh, gosh. I wanna say it happened at the end of high school.
Marilyn:Okay.
Kristin:It was right before college.
Marilyn:A relief.
Kristin:Oh, yes. Because it acts like an artificial pancreas. So it reads your blood sugars and send signals to the pump as to how much or how little insulin to get. The technology is amazing. Over the twenty years, this is her twenty year diiversary this year, and she that's what we call it.
Kristin:She also had a diet buddy, which was her best friend Justin who got her through most of school, all the way through high school. They started in preschool together all the way through high school.
Marilyn:And Wow.
Kristin:He was her bestie and would walk with her to the office. If she needed assistance, he would remind her, hey. You need to check your blood sugar right now.
Marilyn:Oh my gosh.
Kristin:They were his family were really good friends of ours, and he was always her diet buddy and still is to this day.
Marilyn:That's incredible. Let me ask you something about, when kids go to bed. Are you in bed throughout the night waking up thinking, I hope she doesn't crash. I hope something doesn't happen in the middle of the night. Because how if they're asleep, and this is before the monitor, how'd you get through those nights?
Kristin:Ugh. It's very scary. Very scary. I have a lot of, sleepless nights because if the blood sugar drops in the middle of the night, she might not feel it, and she could go into a diabetic coma. So those fears were always, always even when she left for college.
Kristin:It's just there. You know, as a mom, you just constantly worry about these things. Right. Luckily for us, Haley has always felt her lows. And I think the lowest on record that she has gone to with her blood sugar was, like, in the high thirties, which is very scary.
Marilyn:Wow.
Kristin:So that's shaking and feeling like you're gonna pass out and, like, you your body can't move and you're clammy and you need sugar. And, you know, as human beings, we've all felt what it's like to need food or sugar when you go a long time without eating or not having the right foods. Your body feels tired and, like, you just need to lay down and you wanna sleep. So it wants to pull you into that, you know, that comfort of sleep, which is extremely scary because if you don't wake up then I've had that happen to some of our friends. I've heard of that happening to some of our friends that, you know, they've woken up to their child not being responsive, and that's the scariest thing.
Kristin:Luckily, we never had to do that.
Marilyn:Thank goodness. What was your scariest moment? I remember you telling me one time, and I'm guessing this is one of them, when you could not get your hands on the insulin you needed.
Kristin:Oh gosh. So we took a family trip to Chicago to meet Steve's biological mom for the first time. And we went out there, and Chicago is a wonderful city. We were having a blast. And Hailey was in high school.
Kristin:And, you know, we every year, we gave her a new task to deal with diabetes. You know, when she could add double digit numbers, then she counted her carbs. When every year, we gave her something new to become independent with it. So this was a trip where I said, okay. You're in charge of packing all your supplies, and I want you to pack double what you think you need.
Kristin:That was from doctor Simon. You don't pack what you need. You pack double what you think you
Marilyn:need. Yeah.
Kristin:Well, Hailey didn't do that. And I had checked her bag, but I didn't I guess I didn't catch it either. She didn't pack enough insulin. And it all depends on how much you eat.
Marilyn:Sure. And you're on vacation. You're probably having a little more. And
Kristin:Right. So you still have to put your insulin in the pump even when you have an insulin pump. So Okay. The pump was getting empty, and I said, okay, Hailey. Time for a refill.
Kristin:And she went to fill it up, and she's like, mom, I don't have enough. And we had, like, five or six more days of vacation left.
Marilyn:Oh, boy.
Kristin:So we're like, okay. We're Kaiser is our medical carrier, and, there's no Kaiser in Chicago or Illinois anywhere. So we went to Walmart and asked if we could fill it, and they said, well, do you have a prescription? So we got Kaiser on the phone, and they were like, oh, we can't transfer the prescription. And they said, oh, well, you can pay for it.
Kristin:It's it's about $600 a vial. And we were we were like,
Marilyn:what? Woah.
Kristin:Okay. We could we could do that. We we have to, but, you know, we'd rather not because usually our co pay is $20.
Marilyn:Yeah. Yeah. Thank goodness for good insurance.
Kristin:Right. Right. I mean, because people who don't have there are many people who don't have that and are paying out of pocket for insulin, which they need to stay alive. And it's it's a crying shame. But I called Kaiser three times.
Kristin:Finally, I got through to a nurse. I just asked for an appointment with a nurse, and she said, mama, take a breath. And she understood. I just wanna cry talking about it because in that moment, I was scared to death that my daughter's not gonna have insulin, and this nurse made the difference because she said, I'll send it over right now, and then I'll transfer it back to Kaiser when we're done. And I said, well, you know, we'll pay the cash if we have to.
Kristin:No. You don't have to. I got it. I got you. And she did.
Kristin:So she say that.
Marilyn:Godsend. Another angel in your life.
Kristin:So many on the way. Yeah.
Marilyn:Oh my gosh. Chris, I wanted to ask you kind of kind of touching on what you said about the guy in the grocery store, you know, not understanding. You got me with that one too. Not understanding about the syrup in the in the cart and that you're saying, no. She needs a certain amount of sugar at times because type one is different than type two.
Marilyn:Did you feel or do you know if Haley ever felt, or did she talk to you about judgment? Was there judgment on her because of an illness, a chronic illness?
Kristin:I think along the way, she had a coach, a volleyball coach, actually, who wouldn't put her in because her blood sugars if, you know, she was in there playing and she had to come out to have a juice or because she felt like her blood sugar was too high, the coach didn't play her much, I think, because of that. I think she felt like it was too much trouble or it was, you know, a detriment to the team. It was kind of like a distraction for the rest of the players. Even though the other players knew and were perfectly fine with it, I think, she treated Haley differently, and that was hard. That was hard on Haley.
Marilyn:Mhmm. And I'm sure just the ignorance of not understanding how this how this, autoimmune works, and especially for for young kids, it probably looks different. You know, the monitor on her arm or or the pump. Excuse me. I think the pump came first right before the monitor.
Kristin:Right.
Marilyn:Do you think most kids were pretty cool about it?
Kristin:Most kids are cool about it. They actually think it's pretty neat, and they say, oh, I want one too, when they're younger when they're younger. Yeah. I think the older she got, the more people who didn't understand just really didn't wanna know. Mhmm.
Kristin:There was a time when she was, I think, fifth or sixth grade, and there was a substitute supervisor in our school cafeteria. She was at the school where I was teaching, and they tried to take her pump away. It's literally attached to her.
Marilyn:Oh my gosh.
Kristin:It has a tube that is attached to a needle that, you know, delivers insulin. They're like, oh, no. That that looks like a pager. That's that's no. You're not supposed to have that.
Kristin:And she said, yes. I need it to give myself medicine. And I guess the supervisor questioned herself after a while and went and asked another adult and they said, oh, yeah. That's Haley. She's a she's a type one diabetic.
Kristin:She needs that. And she apologized. There's been there's been little blips like that on our radar. But for the most part, it's just a matter of educating and advocating for type one and telling people about it, and and then they understand.
Marilyn:Right. Right. Well, she and I know her as an adult, and and what a beautiful ugh. She's such a go getter. She's she loves education.
Marilyn:Just got her master's degree. She's thriving. And She really is. She's in a beautiful relationship, and she's just in every part of her life, she's doing so well. How do you think she finds her happy?
Kristin:You know, she's so strong and resilient. She loves so many things that and she loves hard. I think she finds her happy by surrounding herself with good people. Just things and people she loves. She's she's just she's constantly learning.
Kristin:She's constantly rewarding herself when she accomplishes something. She'll go out and go shopping or, you know, go out to eat with her friends. I I think that she's she's mostly happy all the time. She she does let it get her down every now and then. You know, diabetes is a disease that life will feel normal for a long time, but it reminds you that it's there.
Kristin:So she'll have little breakdowns here and there. And she'll say like, mom, I know I shouldn't feel bad. I know I shouldn't feel this way, but I do. And it's like, it's okay. It's okay to have those feelings because this is hard.
Kristin:This is tough. And it's not something that will ever go away. It's a part of her forever, but it's not who she is.
Marilyn:How does it affect other parts of of life as you're going? I'm I'm guessing as a second grade teacher, you've had students with type one diabetes.
Kristin:Yes.
Marilyn:How is your own personal experience? I'm I'm sure that's made you a much more understanding teacher for kids who might have chronic illness.
Kristin:Definitely. And I've I've seen symptoms in some kids, so I mentioned that to their parents. Just, you know, go get tested. Go get checked. Things like that.
Kristin:But if I hear them a type one in our school, I'm like, please, please put them in my class or please give their parents my my phone number. Let let them reach out to me. I you know, I'm here as a resource for them so they don't have the fears that I had, and they know someone's got their back if they can't be there. But I was lucky enough for Hailey to be able to attend the school where I was teaching, so she was always within reach for me when she was little and in school. So I can't imagine being a parent and not being able to be there, you know, within a moment's notice.
Kristin:That must be really, really scary for people. So that was another blessing for us along the way.
Marilyn:Did you have, a support group or some place where you could talk to other parents who were going through this so you didn't feel alone? We talk a lot about this on our show about how our mission is to share stories so other people don't feel like they're alone, that they have somebody who understands. And even if one person out there understands, you can feel supported. You can feel like you can get through it. And when you hear those stories, you know, wow.
Marilyn:If they can do it, I can do it too. What was your, moment that you thought, no. We can do this.
Kristin:That's another great question. When she was first diagnosed within that first year, I reached out and got on Google, who was my friend again, Google support for type one families. The organization, Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation came up and it says, Sign up for a walk and raise money for a cure. So I did that and recruited, you know, some of my friends that were teachers that, you know, we all went for a walk in Sacramento around the Capitol Building and, you know, our friends and family donated money and we're like, yeah. This is great.
Kristin:We're gonna walk for a cure. Had a blast. Had a great time. Hailey did it too, and we had shirts that had said Hailey's angels on them. We were like a team.
Kristin:And then that led us to the ride to cure. So the second year, Steve signed up for the Ride to Cure, which is a cycling group through Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation, which is now called Breakthrough T1D. They just changed the name within the last year. And that has been a passion of ours ever since. So for about eighteen, nineteen years, he's become a coach, a cycling coach, and he rides every single year, at least one ride, if not two.
Kristin:He will ride his bike for a 100 miles in various locations. He's done Tahoe, Death Valley, Burlington, Vermont. He he enjoys cycling, and the people that we've met, we would attend the rides with with him at first. And we would volunteer because, you know, they need snacks along the way. They need markers along the way.
Kristin:So families would sign up and get involved. And we met so many families, so many type ones, so many people associated who are the best people, who share the stories and share the grief and the sorrow and the joys, everything that goes along with it. And so we're like a big family. And, we've made some lifelong friends through that organization, and it's been such a support for us.
Marilyn:Beautiful. Beautiful. And what do you think having Hailey doing that along the way early on is is being in service to others, has that been something that you think has bonded you you guys as a family?
Kristin:For sure. Definitely.
Marilyn:And teaching your daughter too as she's going through it that she's a beacon for others. And to support those coming up behind her must give her a sense of purpose and a and a mission along the way.
Kristin:Definitely. You know, we've handled it well. Looking back, we have handled it well. Would I do some things differently? Yes.
Kristin:But we had praises from our doctors about keeping her out of the hospital. She had one visit to the ER since she's been out on her own independent, which I think is amazing for her. She would be asked by her nurses to, Can you speak to this other patient who's newly diagnosed? And Hailey would say, Sure, of course I will. Give them my cell phone number.
Kristin:Anyone who's diagnosed, I'll talk to them. She never really wanted to do camp with other type ones. She never wanted a pen pal or anything like that. Other kids do. That was just not her thing.
Kristin:But if someone asked someone asked her to be a resource, then she would she would definitely do it. She loved doing things like that.
Marilyn:You know, I was thinking about something you said about, you know, staying out of the hospital with a disease that can be unpredictable. And with a pancreas that's not working just right, and you don't know, are you going high? Are you going low? I think in our world, every we all we we all want some control.
Kristin:Definitely. Yes.
Marilyn:And I think it's scary to think about something that can change so quickly. The body not operating just just right. And having to become because everything, you know, for most of us, that heart's pumping, pancreas is working, lungs are, you know, filling up and expanding and and and the way they do every second of our lives, and we don't have to think about it.
Kristin:Right.
Marilyn:And I feel like with this this major organ in her body that you have to become sort of the brain center for this this organ that for so many of us just operates, you know, just
Kristin:fine. Normally. Right. Normally. And so your talks about cancer.
Kristin:You know, you you go about your life, and you take things for granted until they're taken from you. And when they're taken from you, you think, wow. There's there's this way I can handle this, and there's this way I can handle this. Which way is gonna be best for me? And that's different for every person.
Kristin:Right? Yeah. I mean, you've talked about that in all your talks.
Marilyn:The path of least regret. How do you how do you how do you make choices when when there's so much uncertainty?
Kristin:Right. And you can you can pick yourself up and and dust yourself off and and take two steps forward today. If that's all you can do, then that's all you can do. If you can take 10 steps today, even better. But you do what what is best for you and what you can handle and, you know, you got all those people holding you up on each side
Marilyn:Yeah.
Kristin:That you surround yourself with, and it and it somehow it works. And one day you're just like, wow. We did it.
Marilyn:What do you do now just to keep yourself? I'm sure there are times that Hailey's out on her own. I'm sure the worry is still there. What do you do for yourself to maintain your own sense of of just well-being and and health? When that anxiety can still kick up at times, I'm sure sure you worry about her.
Kristin:I do always. You know? I'm a mom. I you worry about everything, but, you know, I trust her with all my heart and soul. And I know that we've raised her to make the right decisions and to be resilient and to get through things that are tough because when you survive things that are tough, you come out better in the end.
Kristin:Right? Mhmm. Every mistake you make along the way, every every little bump in the road makes you smarter and more thoughtful and, stronger.
Marilyn:For a family that is new to this, they're scared. They're uncertain. They don't wanna do it. There's probably resistance somewhere in your mind going, I just don't wanna do this, but you have to. What do you hope someone like that takes away from all of your lessons?
Kristin:Well, when Haley was first diagnosed, I reached out to a friend of ours, a fellow teacher. I didn't know him very well, but I I you know, he was an acquaintance. And I reached out to him. He had his daughter was type one. And he said, the only thing you need to know, Chris, is you're gonna be okay.
Kristin:Okay. And, you know, for anyone newly diagnosed, it can be so overwhelming. So just know you're gonna be okay. I'd say that to everyone and take one step at a time. Just one one thing at a time and master that and then add something else to your plate.
Kristin:But breathe through it and know you will survive, and you will be fine. You'll be okay.
Marilyn:And that was Kristen Meese. I've known Kristen all the way back as we mentioned, and, she's always been that reliable friend. Morgan, get in here. I wanna talk about Kristen.
Morgan:I I can definitely see the reliability of the friendship. There's something about being an elementary teacher.
Marilyn:Mhmm.
Morgan:I feel like they just tend to have these huge hearts and this care for children, and then combine that with a mother's love. And that's the message I really got from Kristen is a mother's commitment to her child makes almost anything possible.
Marilyn:All the difference. And, with her husband, Steve, I mean, this family unit's very tight. They have always supported Hailey in ways that have made her feel like she's unlimited, and she has been. I mean, this girl has taken off. She is on her way in her life, you know, and really adulting and knowing how to take care of herself.
Marilyn:I loved how Kristen mentioned how it was education all the way through to make sure Haley she'd add that one new task for Haley so Haley could take care of herself. And that's that's real love.
Morgan:It almost is kind of like a silver lining to, you know, go through such adversity and struggle, but it it seems to have taught Hailey a lot about about pursuing her goals in spite of, you know, what might feel like an obstacle.
Marilyn:Absolutely. And being totally self reliant when you have a disease like type one diabetes where, she is insulin dependent, will continue to be, but knows how to handle it and has the confidence within herself to know that she can take care of herself, and what a gift her parents gave her in that.
Morgan:And and it shows to be 24 years old and taking on the world in in the way she is. It's really inspiring.
Marilyn:Yes. And I hope it has inspired so many parents out there who might be listening who are in a similar situation. Morgan, thank you so much, and thanks to all of you for listening. If you're looking for a safe space to keep these conversations going, just come join us in the I Choose Happy Facebook group. Morgan and I are in there, and it's full of heart healing and people who really get it.
Marilyn:So just search I Choose Happy on Facebook. We'd love to have you. We'll see you next time on I Choose Happy presented by the company.