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.