Right now it is 3:30 am on Saturday December 28th 2013 and I am writing this post from a room inside Cincinnati Children's Hospital, where I have been since Christmas Day with Carson. If you read the last post you know that I was very worried and puzzled over what was happening to his tiny little body. I now know the answer to that question.
Monday of this week was pretty much like the rest of the week before. He would eat a tiny bit, drink plenty, show me his tongue and fall asleep. We were worried that he was coming down with some sort of bug because you could see in his eyes that he was 'off' but with no fever or any other symptoms I didn't take him to the doctor because I knew the routine of "Well, it's a virus just push fluids. As long as he is drinking and peeing and not dehydrated it will pass." I asked him to write yes or no when I asked does your throat hurt? No. Does your tummy hurt? No. Does your ears hurt? No. Does your head hurt? YES. I ran and got the Advil and gave him some thinking it would help. It seemed to perk him up a little but then he was back to his new 'normal' within a few hours.
Tuesday was Christmas Eve and things started to look a little worse. He started drinking a ton of water. The kid doesn't even like water but he was begging for it. We were worried that he was dehydrated so I went to Kroger and bought him Popsicles and juice. I told my mom that I would've puked with all the water he was drinking. He ate pizza for lunch and encouraged I decided to go get McDonald's for dinner thinking he would eat it too. By the time I got back he had started vomiting and was looking very pale with dark circles around his eyes. By this point I was thinking it was either strep or the flu. Still no fever though. He went to bed at 7pm on Christmas Eve.
He woke up at 5am on Christmas morning and the kid looked like he felt horrible. He had no interest in any of his new toys, even though he had gotten some really cool things that he would normally love (a tractor and a Thomas Train Set). By the time Mike got up and looked at him he wanted to go to an Urgent Care or the ER. I called my sister and she said to call our pediatrician. I called the number and asked for the on-call doc to call us back. Luckily for us it was our regular pediatrician that Carson sees on a normal basis. I described everything to him in as much detail as I could (after apologizing profusely for bothering him on Christmas and taking him away from his boys.) No fever, sore(ish) tongue hanging out of his mouth, pale, dark circles, vomiting, not eating, thirsty, peeing a lot, clear pee, gave Advil. Hand Foot and Mouth? Strep? He said it didn't sound like anything worthy of the ER and that I should bring him in the next day (Dec 26) at 8:45 and he'd see him first thing. Don't call. Just show up. BUT if I became worried then maybe we should take him to the ER but go to the satellite location, not the main hospital because since it was a holiday most Urgent Care locations would be closed and it would be like a full moon, plus the satellite location didn't have residents.
I hung up and felt reassured. Mike wasn't convinced. We decided that he would stay home with Carson while I took Baylee over to my parents for Christmas with the rest of my family. I was only there a few hours and decided that I needed to get home to check on Carson. Baylee didn't want to leave yet so I left her there to play with her cousins. When I got home I found Mike and Carson in our bed. Carson was breathing very heavy (like panting) and moaning. I told Mike we'd had enough. We were going to the ER. I knew what it felt like to have the body pain from the flu and thought maybe we'd catch it in time to get Tamiflu and it would help. I got Carson dressed and put him in the car.
We drove an hour to the emergency room. It was agony listening to him in the back of the car and I wanted so badly to just ram down the pedal and drive 80 the whole way there but knowing it was a holiday I knew we'd get nailed for speeding. When we got to the ER they triaged him quickly and rushed us to a room. The physician was already in the room waiting for us. I ran down the list of 'problems' to her and she asked me if he had any significant family medical history I should know about. I pointed to his dad and said, "He's type 1 diabetic." She nodded and asked, "Did you check HIS sugar?" Motioning to Carson. "No," I said. "I didn't even think of that." She told us that that was what all signs were pointing to and then she checked his sugar. 'Well, it's over 700." She sighed. I about fell over. Normal blood sugar is between 70 and 120. He had maxed out the meter and they had to send blood off to get an accurate reading.
They tried so hard to get IV's in to start fluids and try to get blood. When she finally came back into the room she told us his blood sugar was actually 1086!!! I have never even heard of blood sugar that high before. She calmly told us that was a type 1 diabetic and the reason for his panting and moaning was because he was in DKA (Diabetic Ketoacidosis) which means that he had acid in his blood and his body was trying to get rid of it any way it could. She told us that Carson was being transferred to the ICU at the main campus and that we would be there for about a week.
I wish I could say that I was numb, but I wasn't. I couldn't really process anything that was going on. Mike cried because he figured it was all his fault since he was a diabetic himself and felt like he gave it to Carson genetically. I was just so worried about (and for) my son that I couldn't even begin to have any type of emotion.
When the transfer team arrived the strapped Carson to a gurney and loaded him into an ambulance. We had decided that I would go with him and Mike should go home to be with Baylee and then he could come the next day to the hospital.
(more tomorrow)
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