Monday, October 17, 2016, was the scariest day. Dustin was rushed to the emergency room that morning with Diabetic Ketoacidosis and had been in ICU since Monday. He was finally discharged yesterday evening.
This is a story I want to tell more so for myself and my memories. Feel free to skip today’s post because this is long! For those of you who don’t know, Dustin has been a Type I diabetic since he was 4 years old.
Monday in ICU–very sick
Sunday was an extra long day at work for Dustin and he worked almost 16 hours. He got home that night, tired but fine, ate, showered, and we were in bed by 9:30. He checked his blood sugar before bed (like normal) and it was in the lower 200s. He opted not to give any correction due to the fact that he exerted lots of energy that day and he didn’t want it to drop during the night (low blood sugar is the worst and stresses me out).
I remember him waking up at 3:40 early Monday morning to use the restroom. Apparently he had been up right before that so he knew his blood sugar was high. He checked it, it was 534 (extremely high!!), changed his port since he’s on an insulin pump, and gave more insulin. I remember him telling me all of this after he walked back into our room.
Side note: If Dustin’s blood goes high, it’s usually a sign of a bad port, so he changes it, administers more insulin and his blood sugar begins to come down. That’s what we expected to happen early Monday morning.
While I was getting ready for school later that morning, Dustin got up to use the bathroom again. Now, this is very unusual for him. I’m the one who could go to the bathroom constantly during the night, not Dustin, so I knew his blood still had to be high. But I assumed it was coming down, just slowly, because he was acting tired but fine.
I kissed him bye when I left the house about 7:20 and he was fine but still asleep. I checked my phone at 8 AM and had a text from him that he had been throwing up and his body ached. I asked if he had a fever because I automatically thought the flu. He said he was laying back down, so I told him I would run home during my planning and if he had a fever then I was taking him to the doctor. I didn’t hear anything back from him.
At about 8:40 that morning, I looked at my phone and had a missed call from him. I knew something had to have been wrong because he knew I was teaching. I called him back while my students were working and his mom answered saying she was taking him to the emergency room because he was continuously throwing up–and this is bad for a diabetic. I’m so thankful he called his mom to ask her opinion because she knew what was going on! Things could have been so much worse if he would have waited any longer.
I immediately called my assistant principal; she ran to my room and I literally threw my grade book at her and ran out of my classroom. While driving to the hospital in the next town, I literally felt so sick and nervous. After I got there and saw him, I was shaking. I have never seen him so sick and the worst part was that I couldn’t do anything to help him. I kept it together and didn’t cry, but if I would have been by myself with him, then I would have lost it.
After he got back in the ER and they ran a bunch of tests, they told us he was going into DKA and they were sending him to the ICU for the night.
Y’all, I was so blown away by the texts, calls, prayers, and visitors that we had and I didn’t send out any texts to people. Word just spread. I think the worst part about the whole experience was the not knowing. Most everyone who goes into DKA does so because they are a non-compliant diabetic–meaning, they don’t check their sugars, they don’t monitor them…they are reckless. That is not Dustin (even though I get really mad at him sometimes when I feel like he eats something he shouldn’t). At first we thought it was bad insulin from Sunday. Then thought it could have been a pump malfunction.
I think the end speculation is bad insulin combined with a bad port.
He has an appointment with his endocrinologist early November.
We are so thankful to be home!! Even though I’m going back to work today, Dustin will be actively monitoring his blood constantly for the next few days to make sure this doesn’t happen again. And you know I’ll probably be calling him after each class period to check on him 🙂
Wednesday afternoon after he got the news he was getting discharged!
Our friend Adam, who also happens to be Dustin’s D-group leader, came to visit Monday night and shared this Scripture from Isaiah 26:3-4 with us:
You keep him in perfect peace
whose mind is stayed on you,
because he trusts in you.
Trust in the Lord forever,
for the Lord God is an everlasting rock.
whose mind is stayed on you,
because he trusts in you.
Trust in the Lord forever,
for the Lord God is an everlasting rock.
I hope that if you’re struggling with something in your life, that this passage will help you as much as it has helped me. I am keeping my mind on Christ who promises to give me peace because he is constant. He is good. Always.
