Diabetes SUCKS!

We had a rough evening tonight. Emily's blood sugar CraSHed!!! It was very scary. I believe what started it all was she didn't eat all of her snack and I thought she had and I gave her insulin for what I thought she ate. I didn't check her blood sugar at dinner because it had been less than two hours since she had her snack and usually when I test under two hours since eating, her sugar is high and I know it's high because she had just eaten, blah, blah, blah... And then we had mini pizzas for dinner and I probably gave her too much insulin for them.

Anyway, she came to me about thirty minutes after I gave her the insulin and said her stomach hurt. Yesterday she had thrown up a couple of times and felt yucky all day, so I figured the pizza was hurting her stomach. She didn't have a shirt on and I asked her why, and she said something that just didn't make sense. I asked her again, and she said the same thing that I couldn't understand. Then I noticed she was sweating. Click! Test her sugar!

She was at 41! So, I tried to get her to eat or drink something, which by this time she was crying and grumping that her sister had hit her, even though she was nowhere near her. So, I grabbed a tube of frosting and began squirting it in her mouth. She hated that! So I tested her again and she was at 34. Panic set in! I wasn't getting sugar in her fast enough. It was then that I found her snack from this afternoon under the chair, unfinished. I had given her insulin for something that I thought she ate. I tried giving her candy, she didn't want it, I tried giving her soda, she didn't want it. I squirted more frosting in her mouth, and she cried and refused to swallow.

By this time, Rob came home from work. He took over and was able to get Emily to eat some candy. I heard her ask him if she was in a dream. I started to cry. This is so not fair. My poor girl. I was feeling anger and sadness and guilt. Angry because I couldn't get her to eat or drink, angry that she has this disease and I can't fix it, angry because I can't take it and put it on myself. Sad because I know this will probably happen again, sad because I STILL don't have a continuous glucose monitor that would have alerted me to her crashing blood sugar long before we got to this point, sad because poor Avery gets cast aside during these chaotic moments, sad because Emily was confused to the point that she thought she was dreaming. Guilt because I should have checked her sugar before dinner, guilt because I should have found the unfinished snack sooner, guilt for leaving Avery to fend for herself, guilt because I feel guilty for feeling guilty.

sigh

We finally see that her blood sugar was coming up, and then she started acting funny again, and I find that her sugar was going down again. She was still complaining of her stomach hurting, probably from all the stuff we were pouring down her. But she had to have more. She HAD to. After she ate some Halloween candy, I checked her and she still wasn't coming up, I called the on-call diabetes nurse. By this time, it had been nearly two hours of us cramming things in Emily's mouth. The effects of the insulin peak at two hours, so the nurse said we had done all the right things, we were almost there, keep giving her sips of soda or bites to eat every ten minutes and then we should be out of the woods.

Okay, whew! Because I seriously thought we were going to have to use the emergency glucagon syringe. The effects of this shot would be nausea and vomiting and an overall sick feeling. I really didn't want to do that to her unless it was completely necessary. Since we were nearly out of the woods, and after another finger stick, she was slowly coming up, we knew we didn't have to give the shot. Whew!!! Did NOT want to do that.

I poured a bowl of marshmallows and we made a fun family moment out of getting Emily out of her low. We told scary stories in the dark with a flashlight. The stories were really more silly than scary and after each of us told a story, we'd eat a couple of marshmallows. Avery had NO problem participating in the eating of the marshmallows. Emily finally got a great sugar reading and we had a fun time as a family. We even did shadow puppets. So fun!

And now I'm having trouble sleeping. Possibly adrenaline still wearing off, the caffeinated drink I had before bedtime, or just me worrying, I don't quite know. But her blood sugar is super and she's sleeping and breathing and Avery is sleeping and breathing so I will try to sleep now.