Interview with Deb
Tell us who you are and a little about yourself, your family, and your location.
My name is Deb Leptrone. I live west of Atlanta, in Dallas, GA. I’ve been married to Ralph for thirty-and-a-half years. It’ll be 31 years in July, so I guess that’s more than half. We have three grown children, all girls. Maggie is 26 and married, and her second anniversary is in September. Kimberly and Katherine (twins) are 22 and will turn 23 in July.
Thirty to thirty-one years. That’s a long time to be together with a family. And so, you’ve experienced some things throughout that time, right?
Oh, yeah. I was thinking earlier about resiliency and what that means to me. Sometimes, it means having a plan B, right? Always have a plan B. Other times, it means taking the next step, whatever that might be, plodding right along, just sticking with it.
But then I was on Facebook just a bit ago and screenshotted this quote that somebody else had shared. It says, “An umbrella cannot stop the rain but allows us to stand in it. And faith in God may not remove our trials, but it strengthens us to overcome them.” Right there, in a nutshell, is definitely where I get the strength to be resilient.
So, let’s go back. Were there any significant challenges early on in your family’s young life?
Yes. We moved to Georgia from Knoxville, Tennessee, when our oldest (Maggie) was just two. We signed the papers for the house on her second birthday. That was in November, the very end of November 1999. In June of 2000, she was diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes. She was two and a half, and that was scary. Ralph was working nights at the time.
Two to three weeks before, we were in Ohio visiting my grandparents at my grandmother’s, introducing Maggie to her namesake and having a grand ole time. I brought my 16-year-old godson/cousin to Georgia for his 16th birthday party. The whole week he was here, she wouldn’t eat. But she was drinking. And that was fine because, you know, she was two, right? I’d been told as long as they’re drinking, they’re fine. They go through all of these different moods, but as long as they’re drinking, they’re okay, right? I dropped my cousin off at the airport, and then my dog got sick, which was insane. I took her to the dog hospital, dropped her off, and Maggie started throwing up. She threw up nine times through the night.
Ralph was working, so it was just me and her. I got up the following day, and I took her to the doctor, our regular GP. They’re like, if she’s not any better by this afternoon, take her to Cobb Hospital because they have a children’s department, and we don’t. So for eight hours, she lay in bed, sat up, sucked down some juice, lay back down, and passed out. It was the first time she’d ever peed through her diapers. And, I’m like, she’s 2, she shouldn’t be doing that. I took her, and we went to the vet’s office to pick up the dog. I’m holding her on my shoulder, and the vet’s like, oh, somebody’s sleepy. And I said somebody was on their way to the hospital. As soon as we got through all the paperwork with the dog, he turned and picked up the dog and said come back tomorrow. Oh, it was great.
We got to the hospital, and I don’t think we were there 15 minutes before the doctor pulled me out in the hall and said, “I smell ketones on her. I think she may have diabetes. We need to check her.” I was like, “I’m sorry, what?” That was never on my radar, a thought I’ve never had. I’m there by myself with her. I’m thinking I had ketones when I was pregnant. It just meant I was dehydrated. So can we, I don’t know, give her some fluids and send her home? And they’re like, yeah, no. From there, we waited, and she tested very, very high. Her sugars were over 800. And that got us a ride in the back of an ambulance.
Ralph arrived at Cobb just as they loaded us up to take us to Scottish Rite Children’s Hospital (now Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta or CHOA). They told him, “You can try to follow us, but here’s how you get there.” This was pre-cell phones and pre-GPS; at least WE didn’t have a cell phone. We were mapping it back then. He had the Atlas book, and it was thick. Laughing…You had to follow from page 287 and flip back to page 116. I could never read that thing. But, he was right in the rearview mirror of that ambulance, every tick of the mile. “You’re not losing me,” he said.
We got to Scottish Rite and bless my mother’s heart. It was a 3-hour drive for her, and she beat us there. She was pacing the halls, going, “Where’s my grandbaby?” And that was a Wednesday. She had to go down to the church and tell my dad at choir practice what was happening, pack a bag, and beat us to Scottish Rite.
We had five days of classes and no sleep, which was exciting (sarcastically). Here’s how you deal with everything. Here’s what you do. Okay. Bye. Information overload? Yes, it was. And then they’re ready to send me out. I got more training taking my newborn home, and this is more life-threatening. But we made it. We prayed a lot. We had not, at that point, found a church here. So, we were reaching out to people in Knoxville and relying on them. We prayed a lot.
I remember when we were in the ambulance from Cobb to Scottish Rite. The EMT said, “Well, at least her sugar level is high. It’s when they’re low, they die.” I’ve never heard the word, never heard diabetes before, and he says this to me. I’m like, “Oh wow, it’s not super comforting. But, thanks.” Now she’s 26, so 24 years later, it still hurts my stomach.
Maybe ten days after we got out of the hospital, we’re driving to Florida for Ralph’s grandmother’s surprise 70th birthday party. Our first stop was with my two sisters-in-law, one brother-in-law, my mother-in-law, Ralph, Maggie, and me. Two cars. I checked her sugar level, and she was 26. I was like, “Yeah, that’s way too low.” Frantically… “Turn the car around. I’m not going. I’m not going to Florida. That’s too far away from the doctor. Turn the car around now. I cannot do this. They sent me home with this baby. No. I can’t do this. No!!!!” I had to be talked off the ledge, literally. Yeah, that happened a lot.
Does anybody in your family have any experience with diabetes at that point?
My dad was Type 2, and he went to the classes with us. He and my mom were able to do the training with us, which was an absolute blessing because then we could rely on them to be a backup. We went from, oh, I’ll drink a cup of milk at 2 in the afternoon, and then we’ll have some lunch and dinner to six times a day within an hour’s window, you must eat this much, these things only. There’s no more sleeping in. We were on shots. We weren’t on the pump yet. She didn’t get on that for another two years.
How did that go for her over the next few years?
She’ll tell you now, she’s not even sure she would take a cure because it’s so much a part of her. She doesn’t remember her life without it. We were force-feeding her. I mean, we legitimately had to be like that for a while. I became, well, I’ve always been a control freak, but I became obsessive. I mean, it was rough. Now, I’m not obsessive, but I’m always super prepared. I had the snacks. I had the book with carb count because there were no smartphones. I had a bible that I carried with me. All the possible fast food restaurants we could go to. I can tell you to this day that McDonald’s chicken nuggets are 13g of carbs, and a small order of French fries is 26 grams. I can eyeball half a cup of potatoes, which is 19g. And so, you learn to eyeball measurements. And she adapted to that faster than I ever would have imagined. But the eyeballing, she’s really as good at it as I am.
We continued and never explained to her what was going on. She was too young. She just had to be told you have to do this, and we have to give you these shots. Poking her finger was never a problem to check her sugar. Giving her injections, now that was an experience. Some days, we chased her around the house. She didn’t have enough fat anywhere, so they all went to her hiney. It was high school, or maybe middle school before we went to the stomach and the backs of her arms or legs. And by then, she was on the pump.
When the twins came along, how did that change the dynamics?
They are three and a half years apart. Had Maggie been any younger, I don’t think we could have done it. She was in preschool and self-sufficient enough that she knew where her juice boxes were. She could bring me her blood check kit if her sugar was low. She could put it together. Even at three and a half, she could do that. By the time she was four, she couldn’t do the big math, but she could tell you how many carbs were in something if it was something on the regular. She went on the pump closer to five. The doctors had us wait until the babies were nine months to a year because “you’re adjusting to enough new in your life right now.”
She was really good with the twins. She went with the flow. We established a routine with mealtimes and snack times, and everything was still a very prescribed amount. So that part was just about on autopilot. And as the twins got older, they went on the same schedule: Here’s your snack, here’s your lunch, here’s your afternoon snack, here’s your dinner. So they just melded into the family, I guess.
What got you guys through all of that? Emotionally, mentally, and physically, just being able to get through the diagnosis to going all in as young parents with a young child and and then having to adapt to it all as your family grew?
I think we just kind of all grew up together. Some say I can’t imagine having to do that to my child, jabbing her with a needle. I would look at them and go, there’s nobody coming behind me to do it, right? If I don’t do it, she dies. That’s not acceptable. We tried for over a year to have her, and never has a baby been wanted so much. And for the first two and a half years, it was just me and her. I never went back to work once she was born, for ten years. There just wasn’t a choice not to survive. There wasn’t a choice not to thrive. Because that’s what we’re meant to do and meant to be, right? We loved each other and that strong love was there as the foundation no matter what.
My uncle died a year ago, and his son, my cousin, was giving the eulogy. My uncle was a soil scientist, and he always talked about bedrock. Bedrock is solid and stable. So my cousin built his whole eulogy based on bedrock, about the man who built his house upon the rock versus sand and how bedrock is formed and is just so stable. Then I was able to build off of that and talk to his kids during my part of the service and look, we all come from the same bedrock because of my, our, Grandmother. Her faith was incredible. It was unshakable. Her love for her family was as well. And that’s what we’re all based on because we all come from that lineage. So the bedrock was there, the bedrock between me and Ralph. I won’t say it was all moonlight and roses. We fought. We disagreed. We disagreed about how to handle the children and the discipline. But we made it. We sacrificed what was necessary in order to do so. We didn’t go out to dinners. Or, if we did, it was McDonald’s because McDonald’s was cheap back then.
Looking back on all of that, would you change anything? Would you make different decisions knowing what you know now?
No, I don’t think so. I mean, I would keep her from ever having diabetes if I could. But anything else? I don’t think I would. There were days when I wished I could stay home with them when they were coming home from high school because that was a serious time, too. But anytime I’ve said that, they are all very quick to remind me that I was there. Because being a teacher, I worked their schedule. I was able to go to band practice. When we got Mona, the diabetic alert dog, at the end of Maggie’s junior year, I was Mona’s keeper while Maggie was on the band practice field after school. So, I went to band camp. I went to marching band practice just as much as she did. I wouldn’t give that up.
I’ve done the same thing for the twins as much as I’ve been able. We both have Ralph and I. We both got involved with the youth program at church because of our kids. At first, it was so we could “watch” Maggie. But then she graduated. We stayed because the twins were involved, and that was important.
So, Maggie was one challenge. What other challenges have you faced?
Laughing… I had twins at the same time and had them six weeks early. One stayed in the NICU for three weeks, while the other came home after five days. And again, you just go without sleep because you’re the Mom. You sleep when you can, even in front of the TV at 8:00 at night. You grab the naps where you can get them.
My own mom saved my life. I was put on bed rest, and she came. She took over Maggie. She forced me to stay on the couch as much as she could. She forced water down my throat every time I turned around. And she stayed for six weeks after they were born. She took early retirement to help me with these babies. She is an amazing example of just who I want to be when I grow up.
It’s hard for me when I think about her now because she and my dad are 82. They’re three hours away, and they’re having health problems. It’s getting scary. I would really prefer that they moved down here. I really would love for them to move in with me. That’s not going to happen because they’re both too stubborn and they’re also both in denial that they need help. And I get really frustrated.
I think about when my mom was my age; her mother was eight hours away by herself because my grandad died before I was born. My mom was a young mom and had all these questions about raising babies. She was eight hours away from her mother, living in an itty bitty po-dunk town where she didn’t know a whole lot of people. She couldn’t just pick up the phone and call because, back then, it cost money to call long distance. And it was expensive. So, they wrote letters like once a week, and they called very infrequently. I can’t imagine how hard that must have been. But I never knew it was hard for her. I never knew that Mom struggled with it at all. I would tell her things like how hard I cried all the way home from dropping the girls off at college. She says, “Oh, I cried for three hours. At least you only had a 45-minute drive.” I’d say, “You did what? You cried?” She says, “Yes. Driving away and leaving you standing there with tears rolling down your face, and yes, I cried all the way home.” I never knew it was hard. I never knew if she struggled, they struggled. But my kids can read me like a book. I think it is because I want them to be aware. I think maybe it has made them better prepared, and that’s a much better place to be in than I was.
That was going to be my next question. How did you prepare your children to face things that come up in their lives, to walk through those storms that will come?
So, I would fly off the handle; I’m Miss Emotional Drama Queen. My dad, however, is Mr. Logic, Mr. Calm. He has a Ph.D. in mathematics. He is a mathematician and a computer genius. He is brilliant. He doesn’t get excited. So, if I was (waves hands wildly in the air) over something, then his was the voice of reason. No, you’re not going to jump off that bridge. You’re going to take this step and this step, then this step. It was never any excuse-making. Never, I can’t do it, or I give up.
We have tried to raise our kids more emotionally. Ralph is more emotional than my dad was. There’s a little more yelling, but also, we’ve never made excuses. Pick up, dust off, you go on if you fall and you’re not bleeding. I’m not going to scoop you up and baby you. Stand up. Brush it off, and let’s keep going. And that’s a credit to my parents and that strong Midwestern background.
Kimberly, my middle child, lives up to my birth order because she’s also the drama queen. My dad laughs all the time, saying I wonder where she got it from. She will just rant and rave and rant and rave and rant and rave and I’m like, okay, now what? None of the kids are going to listen to me directly. But I can say, “Here are some choices.” Because we have been so open with them about our decisions and choices, they are already doing better with money, relationships, and social values. Much better than Ralph or I ever did.
Any advice for other moms who are coming up or experiencing similar things?
You sweat the small stuff, and that’s okay. Everybody does. Worrying about the small stuff until you can look back and realize how small the small stuff really was. I can remember with each milestone with the twins, I’d look back and go, oh God, we survived that. Okay. Because they were not easy. They were busy, busy, busy bodies. And one would go one way and the other would go another. Once they were mobile, they wore leashes and walked like that till they were six. I almost took them to kindergarten with the backpack leashes just to keep track of them. They were hard. I can remember my mom being afraid to leave them when they were six weeks old. She said she just didn’t feel like I bonded with them. And to be honest, at that point, I don’t think I had. I would think if I only had one, I could blah, blah, blah. If I only had one, I could go do this or that. But when I looked back, I realized it’s been a month since I’ve had that thought. And then, oh, they’re crawling now. Look, we survived this. They’re walking now, and we survived this. Nobody fell down the stairs and broke an arm. We did good. It’s that you just keep going. You get through today. It’s hard so maybe it is just get through today. Or perhaps it’s getting through just the next hour. But you get through it. Then, you look back and praise God that you got through it.
Don’t beat yourself up for the times you slip up because nobody’s perfect. Parents need all the grace there is. It is hard, but it does get easier.