Return to Articles Index

Rusty's Ramblings

Published:
1-July-2005

Where is My Little Girl?

Last month I made a big deal about the upcoming Mother's Day. Even though I'm a father, this past Mother's Day was very special for me. At some point in the middle of the night the Friday before, Kari had a full-blown grand mal hypoglycemic seizure. Her younger sister Kristin found her. Needless to say the condition that she found Kari in scared her to death. I have to admit the same feelings. She was standing in the middle of the kitchen at about 6:00 in the morning babbling incoherently. Where was my little girl? No one can figure out how she was able to make it to the kitchen. It was Saturday morning. If She hadn't made it to where Kristin could find her it would have been many more hours before I went to look for her.

She often sleeps fairly late. I can't bring myself to think about what could have happened and the guilt that would have gone along with it. I wanted to whisk her immediately to the emergency room but took the time to clean her up first. I know she never would have forgiven me if I had allowed anyone else to see her in that condition. About the time I got to her she collapsed, not really conscious. Where was my little girl? I checked her blood sugar level. It was 166. I didn't take her to the Children's Hospital where her diabetes care team is. I took her to our local hospital emergency room. Although our local hospital is filled with a very caring staff, they freely admit they don't do so well with children.

The first sign of trouble was their initial attempts to start an IV. Children are little. Their veins are little and hard to hit. Kari is four and a half feet tall and consists of about 80 pounds of solid little girl muscle. It took five of us to hold her down. She was laying there on a gurney so pale and unresponsive until they tried to insert the first needle. It was like trying to hold a Rotwieller down. She went berserk alternately crying and snarling completely incoherently. Where was my little girl? I could go on for pages about the first six hours in the emergency room. All of it similar horrors.

I think I have a pretty good handle on this diabetes thing. I have handled emergencies before, even previous trips to the emergency room. But this. I have never been so scared in my life. The problem that was facing the medical staff was that Kari was showing conflicting symptoms. She had normal blood sugar readings. She was showing symptoms of severe hypoglycemia (low blood sugar) but she had had large urine ketones (usually associated with high blood sugar and too little insulin) for hours and they weren't going down. However, her blood tests showed no signs of acidity (Diabetic Ketoacidosis). Add to that she remained completely unresponsive except for short periods of continued incoherence, and once when we got a little food into her. Where was my little girl? My local hospital, after running every test they could think of, finally made arrangements with the special transport team at the Children's hospital. They came and got her. When she arrived at the Children's Hospital they agreed with the local hospital that the chances of Kari going home anytime soon were non-existent.

The whole day is still kind of a blur but I have a vague memory of a constant, somewhat scrambled litany of prayers. At about 4:00 PM Kari opened her eyes, looked at me and said just as clear as could be, "Hi daddy, where am I? I'm hungry". My little girl was back! The doctors looked at me. I looked at them. We all looked at Kari. I had my little girl back! A short while later I was able to take her home.

What struck me was how totally unpredictable diabetes can be. One moment you're living a normal life. Blood sugar levels are okay, the stress is very manageable for everybody, and the last thing on your mind is finding your child pale, limp, and unresponsive on the kitchen floor at the crack of dawn some morning. I believe that God was watching out for my daughter while the rest of us had a character building lesson. I hope I have learned it well.

Mother's day was kind of quiet. It was the single most wonderful Mother's day I have ever had.

A little leery about Father's Day,

Rusty