Never give up

Never give up seems to be Kathryn's internal mantra. 

This weekend is being taken up with the Bay of Plenty Swimming Championships.  Not much fun for the taxi drivers parents, but something she has trained hard to compete in.  Only over the last month it has all gone wrong for her and she is very dissappointed with her results.

A month ago she swam in a meet in Rotorua.  She had been complaining of a headache for about two days at this point.  She had a great meet, all her hard work at training was paying off (she swims about 10kms per week).  She not only got all personal bests, qualifing times for the Bay Champs, a first, second, third, fourth, fifth and six place in her heats, but she came second overall in her age group.  The very first time she has ever had an age group placing.

During the meet her blood sugars were out of control, super high one minute and crashing to lows the next.  By the following afternoon she was in a vicious cycle of highs and lows and feeling miserable.  I tried without sucess to contact the diabetes team at the hospital and by mid afternoon she rang me at work saying she couldn't move because of the pain in her head and stomach.  Off to the hospital we went.  And four hours later and two epidosdes of hypoglycemia in the hospital waiting room we were finally seen.  As none of the doctors or nurses at the hospital we were dealing with have every seen and insulin pump before all they wanted to talk about was the hypoglycemia.  We went home the next morning with nothing being resolved.  I was most unhappy with Kathryn's treatment and have put in a formal complaint.

We struggled through the week, swimming club, netball training, waterpolo training, school and a netball game.  She kept going despite pleas from her mother to stay home and take it easy.  We did get back better control of the diabetes but the headaches and stomach aches worsened.  After her netball match where she shot twenty two goals, she lay on the floor crying.  I'd had enough and took her back to emergancy.  They still weren't concerned at all and suggested we go home and increase the amount of panadol she was having.  I stayed put and insisted they do more tests - blood test normal (mostly), urine test - low level of infection, flu swab (later negative).  Go home they said.  No I said do more, there is something wrong with my daughter.  Luckily they listened and took more blood and a chest xray.  Oh they said she has once of the worst cases of pnumonia we have seen this winter.  I can't hear anything (she wasn't even coughing) but look at those xrays.  Another night in hospital and two weeks on antibiotics for you and shock horror no excersise for a week.  Kathryn was not impressed. 

As we left the hospital the next morning a nurse came running after us.  A specialist doctor needed to see us.  Guess what - the kid in the bed next to us was positive for H1N1.  Fabulous!
One day after the antibiotic finished - guess what - Kathryn got the flu.  But would she stay in bed - NO.

She completed a week of intensive sport education, waterpolo, netball and a very, very limited amount of swimming.  So we get to this weekend.  She's still sick, no getting around it, not doing well but turning up everyday (there are three) and trying her best.  One more swim tomorrow morning, waterpolo tomorrow evening and then away for five days on a sports camp.

She never gives up and never slows down.