Diabetes Strikes Again

I haven't posted again in awhile. While I was gone Amanda was diagnosed with diabetes. It's been quite the nasty trip. About a week and a half ago Amanda went to one of Taylor's little league games. She had 2 hot dogs and some cheese fries while she was there. When she came home she went to the bathroom 3 times in the first half hour she was home. Then she drank 3 cans of diet sprite within ten minutes. It is unusual for Amanda to drink half a can at one time. I got out a blood testing meter and checked her blood. It was 349. It was 2 hours since she ate, but 349 is too high no matter what she ate two hours ago. I checked her urine for ketones and she had none. So, I decided to wait for John to get home from work in two hours to take her to the hospital. If she had ketones there is no way I would have waited. So, as long as she wasn't feeling sick and having no ketones I decided to wait on John. When he got home we went straight to the emergency room at Uniontown. Since it had been several hours and Amanda hadn't eaten her blood sugars were normal at the hospital. She was dehydrated though and needed an IV. She also had some sugar in her urine. To me, that was an indication that her blood sugar had been high. The ER doctor did not doubt me at all. She did release Amanda but told me to continue monitoring her blood sugar and to return if it became very elevated again. She also told me to contact the pediatrician on Monday and have her seen and also to have her doctor schedule a glucose tolerance test. So, I did that. I kept Amanda on a pretty low carb diet over the rest of the weekend and kept her numbers pretty normal. Monday when we went to the pediatrician is when things went bad. The pediatrician seemed quite offended that I would test her blood sugar. She went so far as to ask me what business I have with a blood testing meter. I told her 27 years as a type 1 diabetic was what business I had having one. (Not that anyone can't go buy one. They aren't exactly illegal.) She rather grudgingly ordered a glucose tolerance test. When I got home I looked more closely at the prescription. It was for a one hour glucose tolerance test. I thought to myself, "What good is a one hour glucose tolerance test when blood sugars tend to peak at two hours?" So, I called an endocrinologist and asked him if he thought the one hour glucose tolerance test was adequate. I was told it was absolutely not adequate and to take her to Children's. So, off to Children's we went. Had been still keeping her on a strict diet and her blood sugar was normal again. They released her again. This time though they told me to call the pediatric endocrinologist at Children's to get her in for the glucose tolerance test. I was told that I was doing the right things and that she may very well be a diabetic. They thought though that since her sugars were doing well with the diet I was giving her that we could do the testing as an outpatient. Of course if there were any radical changes I should come back to Children's immediately. So, we went home again. Later that day we went shopping. While were in Walmart it got to be time to eat. So we went to Subway. Amanda wanted a meatball hoagie, of course. I tried to get her to choose something else, but her heart was set on the meatball. I did convince her to get a wrap instead of a sub. I thought she would do OK since we cut down the carb a lot with the bread. She did not do well. Two hours later her blood sugar was 281. (Don't want to think what it would have been if she had the bun too.) I kept checking her blood sugar and saw that it was coming back down. I knew there was definately something diabetes related going on. Even though her numbers were coming back down, a healthy body doesn't reach that high when they eat. So the next morning I called the pediatric endo and told him about the 281 after Subway. He said that she needed the glucose tolerance test very soon. He said the only way he could get her scheduled to have it done soon enough was to admit her. So he asked me if I could pack her a bag and bring her straight to the hospital. I told him that I could but that I live over an hour away from the hospital so it would take me awhile to get there. He said that was fine as long as I made it before 5:00. I left John a message at work and set off for the hospital. We got stuck in traffic on a bridge (bridges make me nervous) for about half an hour. We also got stuck behind a car accident. One car was on its roof. We got to the hospital at 4:30. We left at 2:30. So, she got settled in her room. They took some blood. She met her doctors and nurses. She was a little afraid that I would leave her, but I told her I would be there with her for as long as she was there. She was a pretty good girl at the hospital. They did the glucose tolerance test first thing the next morning. She was very mad when she found out that she wasn't allowed to have breakfast. She started screaming "I want breakfast!" LOL Who could blame her? The doctors told her that if the test came back normal she could probably go home. They also checked all my blood testing meters for accuracy when they did the glucose tolerance test to rule out meter error. They were all perfectly accurate. When the doctors came back in the room after the test the first thing Amanda did was ask if she could go home. The doctors didn't reply to her right away. I knew her test hadn't come back normal. (but I didn't think it was going to) They told me that Amanda's sugar level seems to stay well within the normal range for the first two hours. When she hits that two hour mark after she eats her blood sugars spike to over 200. Then they come back down. So, since all the previous tests were done well past the two hours or else fasting her blood sugars appeared normal. She was very upset at having to stay in the hospital another night, but she did calm down. She did very well in the hospital. They started her on metformin and she got to come home the next day. Her blood sugars have been pretty good on the metformin. She is doing a great job at her diet. She has been reading about diabetes. She never complains about a blood test. I am so proud of how well she has done. I am pretty exhausted at the moment. I went straight from living at the hospital with Amanda to teaching music to 100 children at Bible school each evening. Tonight is Amanda's baseball party. I get a break from Bible school tonight. Amanda is looking forward to getting her trophy. She has asked me how to eat healthy for the party. We discussed it with the dietician and she is able to have a little pizza and a little cake without the icing. I knew if she didn't have diabetes something else was wrong. Doctors should take mothers a little more seriously. We know our kids.

Fire in the night

I must have been ten at the time. My cousin, her husband and one year old baby, Amy lived in a trailer next to us. Living out in the country, living next to someone doesn't mean right next to them, but it wasn't terribly far. I still shared a room with my little brother back then. I think Mom had a fear of fires and didn't want either one of us down the hall. We were directly across the hall from her and Dad. My brother and I were in bed asleep when we heard a loud boom that shook our beds. A few minutes later we heard loud pounding at the door. We could hear Bill (my cousin, Patty's husband) saying the trailer was on fire. The trouble was, we only heard one voice. My brother and I went to the window. We looked out into the darkness but could clearly see a huge ball of fire lighting up the night. You could make out the length of the trailer and the flames came up around the sides and curved around at the top. The fire looked like a cylinder in the night. You could see nothing but the orange flames lighting up the darkness. I remember my brother and I being alone in the bedroom and wondering aloud if Patty and Amy were inside. It was really obvious that if they were it was well past too late. Soon we were downstairs. I don't remember if someone came up and got us or we just went down. I don't remember who told us but we did find out that Patty and Amy were spending the night at my aunt and uncle's house. The smoke detector made a little beep and nothing more, but the furnace had gone out. So, Bill took Patty and Amy to her parents house for the night. He was going to come home and try to get the furnace working. Just as he almost got home the trailer exploded into a ball of fire. I remember watching out the kitchen door as the firetrucks went past our house. Soon our house was full of family. I remember Patty crying. Morning came and everyone was still at the house, but the fire was out. The men had gone up to the trailer to see if anything was left. My brother and I went to sleep on the couch. We, of course, didn't have to go to school after the night we had just spent. When we woke up we overheard the adults talking about the dog. Apparently, Buddy's remains were found hiding under what had been the couch. Patty was crying for Buddy. He was a nice little dog. Then we heard about what had survived the fire and it wasn't much. What did survive made me think about what protected the family that night. I have never stopped believing that the little beep was not a coincidence, even though there wasn't any smoke detected at the time it went off. They lost everything except for 3 angel figurines, a copy of the poem "Footprints" and a Bible. The cover burned off the Bible, but not one page of print burned. I always thought the poem meant that "He" carried them through that dark night. The Bible was God's assurance that "He" was there. The 3 angels represented the 3 guardian angels that must have watched over each of the 3 people who lived there. I thought that in my child mind that day, but I have never stopped believing that. After my brother and I ate we walked to the trailer to see what was left. It was nothing but a huge pile of ash and some pieces of metal. I clearly remember the springs in the couch. The car sitting there with the glass burst out of it from the intense heat. Last night, John and I burned some garbage. While I stood there watching it burn memories of that night came back. When the garbage burned out I looked at the pile of ash that was left and I said to John, "That is exactly what Patty's entire trailer looked like." He answered, "I know. I've been there too." At that moment, I forgot that he had survived a fire. His house had been on fire and he had been inside. I try not to let fire bother me, but it does. I like a nice little fire, but don't let it get uncontained. I get a little worried when it starts to burn a little high. And forget ash! Any kind of ashes bother me to no end. I cannot stand for any kind of ash to touch me. It makes me feel very dirty and like I have to immediately wash. I do not want it to touch me, nor do I want to breathe the smell of it. The smell of dampened ash is nauseating. I can so clearly remember that smell from the morning after the fire. I remember walking through the ash and touching things. I was obviously not afraid of the ash then, but I do not ever remember a time after that I wasn't bothered by ashes. My father in law wanted cremated, probably for the sake of saving money for us. None of us liked the idea. I wouldn't have been able to stand to visit my sister in law if she kept Dad on a shelf in a jar. I just would have been too freaked out. She was very kind and understanding of my fear. She also wanted a burial. So Dad did not get his request for cremation. It bothered those of us left behind. Maybe all of us are a little bothered by surviving a fire.