Tuesday, March 20, 2007

The kind of post you wish you didn't have to post

For those in our immediate family and close friends, this is not new information. For others, it is.

Last Wednesday night at 10pm, I took Emma (our 2 year old) to the Emergency Room with extremely high blood glucose levels (a normal person would be between 80 and 130 and she was at 580). She was immediately admitted to the ICU and diagnosed with Type I (insulin dependent) Diabetes.

She stayed in the hospital until Saturday when she returned home and we began the processing of testing, and insulin shots on our own. I have spoken to the Doctor no fewer than 2 times a day since we have returned, and we have constantly been tweaking and modifying her injections until her body adjusts to the insulin and stabailizes.

I am happy to say that she has been "almost" stable for 24 hours. She had one "higher than normal" reading overnight, but the Doctor is fairly confident as to why this is happening and after leaving things alone today, she may make one more adjustment tomorrow that will probably address that reading.

But that's not the end of it. She will always have to monitor her sugar levels, and watch what she is eating. Right now, the struggles are making sure a 2-year-old eats what she needs to eat based on our injections. As she gets older, it will be more a "defiance" that will cause our challenges. And each growth spurt, and illness will be cause for adjustments.

But for now, we are just happy she is home and acting as though nothing has changed. She acts like nothing has happened and right now, she is currently transferring crayons back and forth from a lunch box to a Ziploc and back again (I think she has done this about 10 times now).

So for us, we have a goal of this having the least impact possible and being able to do things just as we normally have done. I do expect, however, that she will be eating more than one meal fed from tupperware at the soccer or baseball field so that she doesn't get off schedule.

From time to time, I will provide updates here, as its easier to cover everyone here than remembering all the emails I need to send!

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