A mom from Utah is now using social media to help raise awareness for childhood diabetes after finding herself so overwhelmed one night, that she called the police on herself.
Kylie Grimes is the mother of four kids, two of whom were diagnosed with Type-one diabetes in the space of three months.
The diagnoses of son Noble, 15 months, and daughter Goldie, six, were quite an anomaly, as there is no history of the often hereditary condition in their family.
On July 31 of this year, as first reported by Today, Kylie frantically called 911 due to an incident in her Utah home concerning her two kids - but the cause for the emergency was very different from your usual 911 call.
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Kylie felt hopeless and defeated after a tricky evening looking after the kids alone while her husband, Kyle, was at work. The stress of a difficult year all came to a head as she typed in the three numbers into her phone.
Kylie's call came after two of her children were diagnosed with Type-one diabetes earlier in the year.
In April, Noble, then seven months old, struggled with parainfluenza and walking pneumonia and faced a difficult three-night stay in hospital. Roughly three weeks later, he was diagnosed with diabetes.
And 63 days later, Goldie then received her diabetes diagnosis.
For Kylie, staying home to take care of four kids, two with Type-one diabetes, while Kyle was away at his job was very overwhelming - she soon became sleep-deprived and incredibly stressed.
Before this point, she says she never hesitated about being the one to 'take everything on', but this all changed on July 31, when Kylie was alone with her children.
Speaking to PEOPLE, she explained: “Before I know it, I am looking at the clock and it's like 9, and I haven't made dinner for anyone. So we're way past bedtime now.”
Kylie asked her older kids to watch Noble for a minute so she could start dinner. Moments later, a difficult situation arose.
"[Noble] had come crawling to my feet and I turned around and his face is all black, I came walking over to the side and my kids were all gone. No one was watching the baby, and he had gotten into my plant. He was eating potting soil.”
Despite Noble not being hurt from the mishap, the mom found herself on the kitchen floor in tears afterwards
“My kids come up to me and they're asking where dinner is, and I just completely lose it," she recalls.
She called her husband in need of help, who was 30 minutes away at the time. Frustrated at how far away this was, Kylie hung up the phone and rang 911 instead.
“The dispatcher’s like, ‘Okay, where's the emergency?’ And I said, ‘I just can't do this anymore. I'm overwhelmed. I just need help'," Kylie recalled. "She's like, ‘I don't understand what's the emergency?’ And I said, ‘Me. I'm the emergency.’ "
Kylie assured the operator that she was not going to hurt herself or her kids, and an officer showed up at her home shortly after. Happy that she wasn’t a threat, the officer and other first responders put Kylie and Kyle, who arrived next, in touch with a social worker who provided information and resources.
"This was the first time that I was like, ‘I can't do this by myself,'" she says, adding that since then she's 'gotten better about asking for help'.
Following the emergency call, Kylie’s mom came to stay with the family, a neighbor volunteered to do some chores, and Kyle has helped with childcare more.
The couple now post their lives on social media, encouraging openness about struggling in the home, especially with infant diabetes and parental burnout. Kylie says people have reached out to thank her and to admit that her openness has helped them.
The family are now also fundraising to get a life-saving diabetic alert dog for Noble; which you can donate to here.
If you or someone you know is struggling or in crisis, help is available through Mental Health America. Call or text 988 to reach a 24-hour crisis center or you can webchat at 988lifeline.org. You can also reach the Crisis Text Line by texting MHA to 741741.
Topics: Parenting, Mental Health, Social Media, Utah
Lauren Lees