Ever since Rosie has been diagnosed (nearly five years ago now), I have lived in fear of the day that we would have to make a hospital visit for a simple virus. I somehow felt like that would mean I hadn't done things right, or we had let things get out of control. I know, I know... that's just that silly d-mom guilt thing.
Last weekend, Rosie's younger brother had a bad case of the flu. He came home from school early on Friday vomiting, and pretty much spent the whole weekend being sick and laying on the couch. Rosie and I were gone over night on a Girl Scout trip, so Little Brother was home with Dad. I had hoped that Rosie might not catch it since we were gone.
Monday, Rosie was fine. We even commented on how great her numbers had been all day that day-- a so-called "no hitter" on the Dex screen. (In hindsight, I should have known better than to voice this out loud, right?)
Well, you know how this goes.... yep, that night she was up through the night being sick. By 6am she had a bg of 600 and large ketones. DH tried giving her a Zofran, and she couldn't even keep that down. I called the endo's office, expecting the standard issue instructions: sips of Gatorade, more Zofran, etc. Nope. The nurse immediately told us that we needed to bring Rosie to the ER. Since Little Brother had also been sick that morning, he was staying home. I packed up Rosie and DH stayed home with Little Brother.
The hospital-- which is also where our endo's office is-- is only about ten minutes from our house. Poor Rosie got sick as soon as we got there-- she ran to the trash can in the parking lot. A security guard saw us and kindly went inside to get a basin for Rosie. They had a room ready and set to work on her IV, drawing blood, giving her Zofran in the IV, and hooking her up to various monitors. By this time my normally happy girl was downright grumpy... she was getting mad about trivial things, like having a band-aid on her finger, and she was just not acting herself at all.
One thing surprised me: after we'd been there an hour or so, we were told to disconnect Rosie's pump. They were not giving her any insulin at that time. This worried me, so I stopped the ER doctor (stereotypical ER doc, who didn't want to slow down for questions-- grrr-- but actually was very nice) and asked about this. He explained that the theory is that if there's something wrong with the pump, they won't know it, so to dose by pump might mean that she is not getting the correct amount of insulin. They prefer to inject insulin. That made sense to me, but there was still a good hour or so when she was sky-high and completely without insulin. The whole process was hard for this mama bear to watch!
After a couple of hours of waiting around and more bloodwork, Rosie was allowed to eat. She ordered a cheese omelet (one of her favorite foods) and oatmeal. Once she ate, she was like a whole new kid-- back to her normal personality and much more calm.
An hour or so later, we were cleared to go home. Her bg was down around 400, and evidently her ketones were down-- I don't recall them actually telling me what they were. Rosie spent that evening and part of the next day sleeping, and by Thursday, she was back to normal, with blood sugars only spiking around 300 on occasion.
Whew. All in all, it turned out that going to the hospital wasn't as bad as I'd feared. It was kind of nice to be there and feel safe in knowing that there were plenty of people who could help her when she was so sick. It's not something I'd want to repeat if we can avoid it, but if we have to go, I think I'll be much more comfortable with the idea next time.
