12 hours away and in a world of ignorance

2 year old Beatriz urinated extensively, much more than the usual toddler. People dealing with diabetes may already at this early stage suspect what was wrong with Beatriz. But Beatriz’s mother had no clue, neither did the doctors she confronted with her crying daughter.

Today, Maria de Lourdes Gonsalves sits in a leaky stone house with her husband and the 12 year old Beatriz, and is able to tell the story that started in 1996 in a small village far north of the Brazilian city of Belo Horizonte.

Brazil. Maria and daughter Beatriz who's diabetes was discovered in the eleventh hour.

Desperately seeking help

The massive urination was a problem in it self. Maria tries to keep her daughter dry, but the ten fabric diapers she has are not sufficient; she tears them into two. “But there was never enough” she explains, so other clothes are torn to dress her child’s behind.

Worried about the health of Beatriz, Maria visits a doctor who quickly diagnoses Beatriz with an internal infection. The second doctor says the same, but the daughter is not getting better. Maria is of a poor background, with a minimum of education and a husband who lives in Belo Horizonte to earn a living for the family. Feeling helpless, she takes a desperate decision to travel by bus to the million city of Belo Horizonte; she hopes to find a hospital that will cure her daughter’s unknown illness. She has to borrow money for the bus fare and finally she commences a 12 hour journey towards what she hopes will be a happy ending.

The long road ahead

Her journey gets a bad start. After few hours of travelling Beatriz needs to pee, but the bus driver is denying her to get off, and Beatriz is forced to wet her clothes. Maria feels a relief when at last the inconsolable and wet child falls a sleep in her lap, until her co-passengers start enquiring about her lifeless daughter. While the atmosphere among the passengers in the bus becomes frantic, the chocked Maria realises that her child has drifted into unconsciousness.

At that point the bus stops at the roadside. The driver denies her to continue the trip and suggests her to take a cab to the hospital. The mother and the lifeless daughter are forced to leave the bus in an unknown town, she has run out of money, her daughter is unconscious and Belo Horizonte is still 9 hours away.

Maria, telling us her story, has to take a break to wipe her tears. But she continues soon after, her story is too important not to be told.

Nobody recognised her diabetes

In the unknown town Maria gets her daughter admitted to the local hospital. She still remembers the doctor’s words when he saw Beatriz; “I had to hurry up, he said, my daughter was dying. I was to contact my family so that they could come to say a last goodbye”. He is the third doctor seeing the child and the third doctor who fails to diagnose her with type 1 diabetes.

In the meantime the father has waited in vain at the bus stop in Belo Horizonte. “I asked them to leave the bus, because your daughter is dying”, the driver told him.

The lifesaving diagnosis

Shortly before the story ends in tragedy it takes a turn for the better as a paediatrician sees the child. He takes a blood test that urges him to send Beatriz by ambulance to the hospital in Belo Horizonte. At last she gets the diagnosis and treatment she needed all along.

After 26 days she is well enough to be discharged. In the meantime the family has decided to build a home in the city, to never again have to do without professional hospital services.

Learning to live with it

Today, ten years on, Beatriz is still alive. She has developed into a strong and independent girl. Her mother injects her twice a day with insulin, but that aside she manages her diabetes on her own, as far as it is doable in a home with only few means.

In the beginning it was a challenge for the family to learn how to live with diabetes. Maria adjusted insulin doses by seeing how much Beatriz urinated – a heavy diaper was equal to more insulin, which subsequently led to more hospital admissions. A turning point came as the family realised that they could have her blood glucose levels measured at the local health centre.

Great and small hurdles

Although the big fights are over, Beatriz meets everyday challenges like her sugar craving, the comments from her friends and the ever changing blood sugar levels that make her hands shake in the afternoon. The diet mainly consists of rice and beans – which must be considered a very poor diabetes diet.

Maria has never forgotten the feeling of loosing her daughter. While Beatriz insists in dreaming the impossible dream of becoming a paediatrician, her mother sends a modest prayer to God; just to keep her daughter a little longer.

A qualified health system is needed

Beatriz survived her dramatic onset of diabetes in spite of the ignorance of doctors, and she has a future after all. But her poorly regulated diabetes can lead to some of the many serious complications related to diabetes. The existence of a qualified health system that will advice and treat her correctly is necessary to give 12 year old Beatriz the long life her mother prays for.