A Trip to the ER

What started off as a stomach flu weekend (or so we thought) turned into a  trip to the hospital and an overnight stay for Cayden.  He started getting sick Friday but we didn't know how bad it would get or that it was diabetes related.  His blood sugars were pretty high after lunch and their policy is that if the blood sugars stay above 300 with intervention for over an hour then he has to come home.  It is kind of stupid though because it really takes 2 if not 3 hours for the insulin to peak and do it's job.  So I brought Cayden home and we gave him his shot and we didn't think much of it.  The next day I took him to The Smith Center to see Joseph and the dreamcoat show and while his sugars were running in the high 200's I was not overly alarmed.  By Sunday morning he was throwing up but as an odd coincidence Don had come home from Houston with what he thought was the stomach flu but was actually food poisoning.  We didn't realize that until much much later and after this hospital trip.  I had to go to ward council that morning so I left around 8:45.  Then since it didn't get over until after 10:30 I just stayed at church and Don was going to bring the boys.  Don texted me at 10:30 and said that Cayden had been throwing up several times that morning but that his blood sugars while sort of high were being treated and so Don was just going to come to Sacrament meeting with Kyle and Caleb and then we could go check on Cayden during Sunday school.  Unbeknownst to us, Cayden's blood sugars were actually in the 400's but he didn't tell us that and he had actually started throwing up much earlier but he didn't tell us that either.  So Don came home after Sacrament to check on him.  Cayden was asleep in the chair holding a bowl of throw up.  Don texted me during Relief Society that Cayden was pretty sick and that his blood sugar was still high.  I immediately thought that we needed to check Cayden's ketones.  Don did that and there were moderate to high ketones.  Cayden was very lethargic and even sayiing weird things.  When I got home from church Don told me how high the ketones and blood sugars were and I told him that we needed to go to the hospital.  Now that is always a really hard decision to make out here because the hospital is so far away.  In the past we have decided to go to the hospital but then we get halfway there and the problem has gotten better usually it has been croup.  I called Dr. Chris and asked him what to do.  I was pretty freaked out and told my brother that he needed to tell me what to do.  He told us that we might be able to reverse the ketoacidocis from home but that we couldn't know for sure how bad it really was or that if it was getting better without going to the hospital.  He told us to just go.  We were able to get Brother Witsken to come over and Don and him gave Cayden a blessing.  I packed up a bag for Cayden and me and we headed in.  Cayden was still very lethargic and kept saying  things like there were minions in his head.  One of the very few good  things about diabetes is that when you get to the hospital they don't wait around.  We checked in and within 5 minutes they had called us back.  They checked his blood sugar and it was only about 350 but his color was so bizarre and the lethargy plus the symptoms of several hours of vomiting lead them to believe that he was in ketoacidosis.  That really can only be confirmed with a blood test so they sent us back to a room.  They put Cayden on an IV with saline and did the bloodwork.  About 6pm they cam in and said that he was definitely in DKA and while it was a mild case he would have to be admitted to the PICU because he had to be on a continuous IV drip and that had to be monitored hourly.  We didn't get to our room until after 8pm because of how busy the hospital was and because of shift change.  We had a really nice nurse in the ER who actually knew several people from Logandale but now I can't remember his name.  That is him in the picture below.  There was a Subway in the hospital so that was nice to be able to eat something while we waited.  After we got Cayden settled in his room Don left to go home and take care of the boys and I spent a very uncomfortable night in a pull out chair.  Being in the PICU is not as comfortable as being on the regular pediatric floor.  We were right across from the nurses station and you have to leave the door open all night long.  Cayden was taken really good care of and the nurses were as accommodating to  me as they could be.  There is a family lounge with bathroom and there was a shower there but it was out of order.  I had to take a sponge bath out of the sink.  The next morning we had to wait for some labs to come back to see where Cayden was at and that would determine if we could go home.  The insulin did it's job and by about 8am they were able to transition him over to the his regular insulin shots.  Don came back in about 12:30 which was just in time to get us and take us home.  Just like Connor, Cayden has a very high pain tolerance.  He didn't flinch when they did the IV's and they had to do them in both arms.  The thing that bothered him the most was taking the tape off to get IV's out.   I was so glad to only have had to spend 1 night there albeit a very long night.  I am so grateful for the prompting to check Cayden's ketones.  I am so grateful for medical care and insurance and Don's job that provides the insurance for us.  I'm grateful for priesthood power and that my husband is worthy and able to bless our children. This was our first experience with DKA in 9 years of dealing with this.  Even when the boys were diagnosed they were not in DKA and did not require the insulin drip or the PICU.  We hope not to repeat this experience again and hope that our kids can learn the absolute necessity of always telling the truth. 

Going to his room in the PICU.  

Getting ready to go home on Monday.