My Child Has Diabetes: E-book for parents of children with Juvenile Diabetes

Last week Kari woke up sick. That whiney blood sugar problem sick that always scares the crap out of me. She wasn't up long enough to check her blood before she started to throw up. I can hear her in the bathroom as I'm thinking about what I'm supposed to do that day that probably isn't going to get done.

Once she gets a chance to catch her breath we discover she's throwing large Ketones. The purple on the strips we use only gets so dark. If they had a black option I'm sure we'd have been there. I clean her up, sit her down, and get ready to check her blood. She might be able to do it herself at this point but I'm in a hurry to find out how sick she really is. 544. That's pretty high. Her old meter used to read “HI” for anything over 500. How high does this stupid thing go?

I decide it's a site failure so we change that out and dial up a correction on her new Mini-med pump. It tells her to take 8 point something units as a correction. I lay her on the couch with a glass of water and go make sure her sister is all set. After about 25 minutes I check her blood again. 565; back to bathroom for more throwing up. How high does this stupid thing go? At this point, genius that I am, I call for the doctor on call.” Dr. Bombay, come right away”.

Before I recount my first attempt to reach the doctor let me just say for the most part I am very satisfied with the level of care my daughter receives from the Children's Hospital that treats her. This day was not one of their better efforts.

I call the emergency number for the Endocrinology Department and a freaking recording comes on and tells me everybody's busy, I'll have to call the main hospital number. With my teeth on edge and my daughter throwing up again I call the main number. You know what the operator says to me? “You'll have to call that department and leave a message I can't call the doctor on call.” At that point I lost it a little and before I hung up to call back the emergency number and leave a message I screamed my frustration at the poor lady.

When I called the emergency number back low and behold a person answered. And not just any person, it was Marianna. Marianna isn't a doctor or a nurse. Marianna works in the endocrinology office. That day she was an angel. I was wild by the time she got to me. She listened to me for about six seconds and she said “I will find Karen Bucci for you”. The only words at that point I would have been happier to hear would've been “Oh by the way, did you hear they have a cure for diabetes”? Karen knows Kari better than anyone else in that whole Medical Center . In about two minutes she's on the line telling me to replace the site I just replaced and to give Kari 10 units of Novalog by injection. “I'll call you back at 11:15AM” and off she goes.

I make Kari as comfortable as possible. She's at one end of the couch looking like Uncle Fester with blonde hair and the dog is at the other end not looking much better. Buster's got pneumonia and we almost lost him but that's another ramble for a dog lover newsletter. I'm setting the kitchen timer for ten minute intervals. Each time the buzzer goes off I have Kari take a sip of water. She throws up some more anyway. I re-check her blood. 612; how high does this stupid thing go?

Karen calls back at 11:15. Still vomiting, still throwing large ketones, give her 8 more units of Novalog via syringe and keep trying to get water into her. She'll call me back in 45 minutes. Forty minutes later Kari has stopped throwing up. I check her blood it's down to 587. Finally the insulin is starting to work. She still looks and feels awful. Five minutes later Karen calls back. She says “as long as her blood sugar is coming down and she's stopped vomiting…” At that point Kari is back in the bathroom just as sick as ever. “Bring her in” says Karen “I'll tell them you are coming”. She went on to voice the concern we had had all day, DKA, Diabetic Keto Acidosis. Extended hospital stays, often coma, and worst case, death.

I brought Kari to the Emergency Room and within several hours all of her blood work came back negative and a couple of bags of intravenous fluids later they let me take her home. And they lived happily ever after? I think not. Two days later she wakes up in the same condition. This time we were able to bring down her blood sugar get rid of the ketones and stop the vomiting without going to the hospital. Needless to say we are using different infusion sets. I know that stupid thing reads at least to 612.

It's a good thing my hair is already gray,

Rusty

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Rusty's Ramblings September 06

How High Does This Stupid Thing Go?