Saturday, October 02, 2010

Slow Torture: A narrative told through Facebook status updates.

Thursday 5:05pm

Finally got the call. Quick dinner and then we're off!

Thursday 6:59pm

Settled in and crafting

Thursday 7:46pm

Waiting anxiously to see if KayTar will win the radio contest...she has prepared confetti to throw just in case she does.

Thursday 9:07pm

Watching The Little Mermaid with my little chickadee.

Thursday 10:36pm

KayTar is out for the night, but her alarms keep going off. It's not looking like a peaceful night is in store between that and the frequent glucose/vitals checks.

Thursday 11:42pm

The nurse lowered the respiratory rate alarm to 10 so it will stop ringing every 30 seconds.

Friday 12:07am

So now that they fixed the respiratory alarm by lowering it, now the ECG is all "Bradycardia!" Lots of ringing around here tonight.

Friday 11am

She started fussing for a snack (14 hours in) and the hospital ice chips came to the rescue. :) She said it is the most refreshing snack ever.

Friday 12pm

Happy little patient


 Friday 4pm


We have reached misery...I rocked her to sleep, but I don't think it will last long.

Friday 6pm

She's still asleep, thank goodness, but it is looking like we'll be here another night.


Friday 10pm


Her glucose is only 58 at the 25 hour mark! She can get down to 58 in like 4 hours on a school day! This is going to be a long night of hourly glucose checks.

Saturday 12am

Gah. Her glucose has now gone up to 63. I'm starting to think it will never drop below 50. She's on hourly glucose checks until it does and only one of us sleeps through those...and it sure isn't me!

Saturday 3am

Glucose was 46, so they drew labs...next up the shot of glucagon and glucose testing every 15 minutes for an hour.

Saturday 4am

She can eat now and in typical KayTar fashion, she isn't. She's been vomiting, though, so that might have something to do with it.

Saturday 5am

Vomiting in spite of Zofran, so they're starting dextrose in her line. Seems like she was mostly fine (but unhappy) until the fasting was over!

Saturday 8:30am

She has tolerated 2 ounces of Pedialyte and 2 ounces of Pediasure this morning per her g-button (it hasn't come back up yet), but she isn't maintaining her glucose like they want, so they are starting her on D5 and we'll try more Pediasure in a bit. She has to be able to maintain a glucose of 70+ to be released.

****





I'll have more to say about it, I'm sure...but let me say this for now...WORST TEST EVER. She's had all sort of tests and procedures, from labs to LPs to surgeries, and I think this takes the cake. It was so hard on her. She was so sad/mad/pitiful after she hit her breaking point and there was still so much left after that. So many, many, many needle pokes. So much waiting. So much crying. Ugh.

5 comments:

ninnifur said...

oh I'm so sorry that it was so terrible for you guys :( I have type 1 diabetes so I get low blood sugars a lot. I can't imagine how she was feeling. I feel crummy below 80mg/dl! Would they not let her run around and play to make her bg drop a little quicker? Or was she just feeling too crummy? I hope this at least answers a few more questions for your family! Oh also was she vomition from glucagon? I heard it makes you vomit, luckily I've never had it!

ninnifur said...

*vomiting. I'm posting this from my phone. Lol

Kyla said...

She has to be on the PCU floor for this (step down from ICU) and they keep all their patients on monitors full time, so she couldn't really do much tethered to the wall unfortunately. :(

The vomiting *might* have been from the glucagon (which they told us this morning, after the fact) or it might have just been from her reaction to the hypoglycemia (she usually vomits when her numbers get low).

So far, the only abnormal lab result has been her cortisol, which was only half of what it should have been. We're waiting on the rest to come back, but her glucose is 103 now and she has tolerated some Pediasure! :)

Christine said...

oh kyla this just sound horrific. hang int here. ((hugs))

InTheFastLane said...

Not fun. And heartbreaking. I hope it helps. And I am hoping you are on your way home now.