Condition affecting 130,000 Aussies landed Hailey in the ICU at seven months old

Tucking her seven-month-old daughter Hailey into bed one night, Perth mum Beck Ballingall thought all was well with her youngest.

Just a few hours later, she'd be standing over that same seemingly health baby as she lay in an ICU bed, put there by a common condition affecting thousands of Australians.

More than 130,000 Aussies live with Type 1 Diabetes (T1D) and it's among the most common chronic childhood conditions. 

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Most kids are diagnosed between the ages of 10 and 14, so T1D didn't even cross Beck and husband Shane's mind when Hailey woke up vomiting that night.

"She was soaking through nappies. She was wanting formula, but obviously it wasn't staying down," Beck tells 9honey.

"But no matter how much formula we gave her, she just wanted more. Then it got to the point where she started shaking and, like, had laboured breathing."

Terrified, she and Shane raced Hailey to the emergency department at their local hospital where doctors initially put her symptoms down to gastro.

Suddenly, one suggested they check Hailey's blood sugar, and in doing so probably saved the seven-month-old's life.

"That's when the symptoms clicked for me, and I think it clicked for the doctor too," says Beck, whose father and grandfather both had T1D.

"I knew as the child of a Type 1 Diabetic parent, I could pass it on to my child. But I didn't know it could be diagnosed that early."

Hailey's blood sugar levels turned out to be so high they couldn't be read on a normal monitor; she was in diabetic ketoacidosis - a potentially life-threatening complication where the body produces too many acids in the bloodstream called ketones.

For a child as young as Hailey, the condition could quickly turn deadly.

She was raced to Perth Children's Hospital and taken directly to the ICU where doctors fought to stabilise her blood sugars.

"She didn't understand," Beck recalls. "She was just screaming."

Had Hailey's parents waited any longer to take her to hospital that night, they might have lost her.

Hailey spent a fortnight in hospital, where she was started on an insulin pump and continuous glucose monitor that would allow her parents to manage her T1D when she finally went home.

Suddenly their lives revolved around insulin injections, monitoring blood sugar levels, site changes for Hailey's continuous glucose monitor, doctor's visits and regular check ups. It was especially taxing when Hailey was a baby and didn't understand.

"I know my daughter can survive it, but it was devastating that she was so young," Beck says. "But my husband and I, we're a team … we knew we could do this."

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Now six, Hailey's never known any different and has adapted to life with T1D really well with the support of her family and organisations like the Starlight Children's Foundation.

The Starlight Captains put a smile on her face every time she has to go to hospital and the charity was even able to organise counselling for Hailey's parents and older brother Brendan, now 10.

"He still gets really bad anxiety, thinking his sister is going to die on him because he saw her in ICU with all the cords," Beck says.

Even she struggles with anxiety around Hailey's health, especially around the Christmas holidays, when there are fewer hospital and ambulance staff available if something goes wrong.

"Health services aren't as readily available and in the emergency departments, it's a longer wait … and that it is scary," Beck says.

Hailey's been diagnosed with hyperthyroidism and anaemia since her T1D diagnosis and a few extra hours or minutes spent in the waiting room can make a huge difference if Hailey's health takes a turn.

"When she was about two and a half she had ketones, she was vomiting and was to the point where she was so dehydrated that we were in an ambulance," Beck says of one particularly harrowing incident.

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She was riding in the ambulance with Hailey when a paramedic turned to her and warned her they'd have to put on the lights and sirens to make sure Hailey got to hospital as quickly as possible. Her heart dropped.

"And poor Dad was following the ambulance, so I didn't have time to warn him we were about to go lights and sirens and he panicked," she adds.

When those scary moments happen, the entire Ballingall family know they can turn to Starlight for support. It's a huge comfort.

With Christmas around the corner, Hailey's family is asking everyday Australians to show their support by donating to the charity's annual holiday appeal.

Funds raised will allow Starlight to keep providing vital support to sick kids and their families, and grant hundreds of Starlight Wishes for kids who have spent so many holidays sick or in hospital.

The Starlight Children's Foundation Christmas Appeal aims to raise $1.1 million to grant 498 Starlight Wishes, transforming the lives of young patients and their families. Donate here.

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