My Story

In 2020 my family’s world changed in a matter of minutes.

 

My daughter had been losing weight rapidly. She was waking up several times each night to use the bathroom and drinking more water than I’d ever seen. One evening, after her pediatrician read my portal message about her symptoms, he called and asked me to take her to the emergency room to have her blood sugar checked.

 

She was scared. I reassured her that everything would be okay. I told her we’d just stop in, get her checked out, and then head to Target afterward to pick up a new book she’d been excited about.

 

When we arrived, the emergency department was overflowing. It was during COVID, and nearly everyone who came through triage was being sent back to the waiting room.

 

Then everything changed.

 

The nurse checked her blood sugar.

 

468

 

The nurses looked at each other.

 

 

“Do we have a room?”

 

“Yep.”

 

Instead of returning to the waiting room, we were taken straight back.

 

Within 45 minutes, my daughter was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes.

 

We were admitted to the pediatric floor, where we would spend the next three days learning how to care for a disease we never saw coming.

 

In the middle of trying to process the diagnosis, I realized I wasn’t prepared for the hospital stay at all.

 

I didn’t have a phone charger.

 

I didn’t have a toothbrush.

 

I didn’t have a change of clothes.

 

I didn’t even have basic toiletries.

 

I remember taking a shower with hand soap because it was all I had, then drying off with paper towels.

 

Those details may seem small, but when your child is sick, they’re one more thing to worry about when your heart and mind are already completely consumed.

 

That experience never left me.

 

Years later, I still think about how overwhelming those first hours were—and how much a simple bag with a phone charger, clean socks, a toothbrush, snacks, or a handwritten note could have meant in that moment.

 

That’s why I started So You Can Stay.

 

Because no parent plans for an unexpected hospital stay.

 

But every family deserves to know they aren’t facing that first night alone.