This past May, my dear friends, Ann and Brooks McGrath, youngest daughter was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes. The McGrath family has been incredible in adjusting their lives and routines, and participating in fundraising of their own to raise awareness and donations for the cause.

I am creating a fundraiser at this time for their family to help them with medical expenses and ongoing support needs for their family. Going into this holiday season, please consider donating to support their wonderful family, as they love and support so many. Please take the time to read their story below.

Friday, May 16th, 2025 was the worst day of my life. Its funny looking back at the camera roll on my phone and seeing the pictures I took prior to Reggie’s emergency. Pictures of my family in the dells playing mini golf on Mother’s Day. I look at those pictures now and think about how that was the last time that we were normal. By the following weekend everything had changed.

On that Friday morning, Regina woke up sick. She had been home from school on Monday and Tuesday with tummy issues but went back on Wednesday and Thursday. On Friday morning she was sicker than she had been earlier in the week. I called her doctor as soon as the clinic opened and shared her symptoms and the things going on that I thought contributed to her feeling so poor. The doctor ordered some blood tests and said I could bring her in for them on Monday. He prescribed antinausea medication and told me if she wasn’t better in the morning that he was working at Urgent Care that day and to bring her in.

Our biggest craft show of the season was that Saturday and Brooks and I were supposed to go set up our booth on Friday afternoon. By the time we were to leave, Regina was sick enough that I didn’t feel comfortable leaving the girls alone so Brooks left to set up the booth in the afternoon. Reggie continued to get worse and I began looking up where the nearest Urgent Care facility was.

By the time Brooks returned home around supper time, Reggie was going in and out of consciousness and not making a whole lot of sense when she spoke. Brooks picked her up, put her in the car, and I made the 15 mile drive to the nearest Emergency Room in 12 minutes flat. I don’t remember much about that drive, but to this day I find myself getting very upset and emotional whenever I’m on that road.

Once at the Emergency Room, things moved very slowly, then very ,very quickly. It felt like they took forever getting Reggie checked in. In reality it was probably only a few minutes, but my baby was in distress so to me it felt like an hour. They got Reggie into a small exam room and a doctor and two nurses came in right away. The doctor looked at Reggie, leaned down to her face then turned to the nurses and said something that caused them to start moving fast. Then the doctor turned to told me, with just that assessment, and told me that Regina was in Diabetic Ketoacidosis. I know now that when the doctor leaned in what she was doing was smelling Regina’s breath – which smelled like fruit candy, a telltale sign.

Nurses were coming in and out of the room doing things to Reggie. I was told that they were moving her to a bigger room that would be easier to move around in and that they had called and ordered an ambulance to take her to American Family Children’s Hospital where she would be in the ICU at least until the next day. My overwhelmed brain intelligently responded, “She needs to spend a night in the hospital?” What a fool.

The doctor, as gently as she could, told me that Reggie would be in the hospital for several days. Then she looked me squarely in the eye and said, “You did the right thing bringing her in tonight. She would have died overnight if you hadn’t.” My entire body goes cold every time I think about it.

After that, things get blurry. We were moved to another room where Reggie was hooked up to all sorts of machines and IV lines. Brooks and Lydia came to bring us things to take to the hospital. I signed a million forms, none of which I remember. The ambulance ride was cold.

That night in the ICU was long and heart wrenching. Nurses and doctors came in every hour on the hour to do checks on her. I didn’t sleep a wink all night. Reggie was throwing up and uncomfortable. During the hourly checks on her they would ask her questions: what’s your name? Things like that. One of the questions they asked every time was “Who is this lady?” and they would point at me. During a few of those hourly checks, she didn’t know. Ouch.

We went to the hospital on Friday night and didn’t leave until Wednesday afternoon. The days were long and I don’t remember a lot of it. We learned what diabetes was and the fundamentals of management. Quite frankly, given the size of the job, I truly feel like parents should not only get more training, but some preparedness for what’s to come, but I digress.

Our first night back at home might have been the second scariest night of my life. You know when you bring your newborn baby home and you’re on alert, listening for them to make a noise? It was like that, but with a metric ton of fear of what could happen on top of it.

In the six months since her diagnosis, Regina has flourished. She has grown three inches and gone up a shoe size, and put on 20 pounds. She has always had a sensitive tummy and digestive issues – those disappeared overnight. When Reggie was diagnosed she weighed 71 pounds. We noticed she seemed thin but thought it was a growth spurt.

These past six months have been difficult, filled with lots of ups and downs. In truth, I don’t remember the month of June. When I see pictures from June, I sort of remember when they were taken, but not really.

I knew nothing about Type 1 Diabetes when Reggie was diagnosed. Since then, I’ve had a very steep learning curve. I knew diabetics took insulin but I didn’t know what that really meant. It means having to know the carbohydrate value of everything she eats or drinks so that I can then calculate using the insulin scale from her endocrinologist to determine her dosage and giving her a shot …every meal, every snack.

It means high and low alarms going off at all hours and needing immediate attention. Low blood sugar is dangerous in the short term and could easily kill her. High blood sugars are dangerous in the long term. They can lead to other medical complications or land her back in the hospital.

Parenting a T1D means never sleeping through the night. Even on nights when her blood sugar is stable, I have an alarm that goes off at 2am every single night to wake up and check her continuous glucose monitor in case her blood sugar is rising or falling. I often go to bed hours later than I planned because I’m waiting for her blood sugar to come up or down and stabilize before it’s worth bothering to try to sleep. It’s like having a newborn baby who doesn’t sleep through the night and will never grow up. I’m exhausted on a daily basis.

What they didn’t tell us in the hospital is that we would always carry a little bit of fear with us, all day every day. They didn’t tell us about the guilt we would feel over not recognizing the signs until Regina was in distress. They didn’t tell us how much time everyday we would spend wishing it was us instead of her.

I had no idea how absolutely awful Type 1 Diabetes is until it happened to Reggie. I feel selfish for how much I hate it, knowing how much worse it is for her. They say that diabetics or their caregivers can make up to 200 more decisions per day than non-diabetics. That’s a huge, high-stakes mental load.

I am grateful every single day that Regina is ok. I’m grateful that we live in a time with all of the technology to manage this disease. I’m grateful that there is real meaningful work happening right now on a cure. Mostly, I’m just grateful that I didn’t lose my little girl.