The Diabetic Debacle
Mar. 7th, 2011 03:00 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dolariThe first sign that anything was wrong began December 2nd.
If you remember that day (http://jenndolari.livejournal.com/2010/12/02), that
was a big roadtrip up the Camino Real. On these roadtrips, I buy a Coke and
drive drive drive. If I get thirsty again (or need to stop in to a convenience
store to visit the facilities), I'll buy some bottled water. I almost never
need more than two Cokes/Water, and even then, that's only for LONG trips.
When I left Dean's house, I filled up a Bill Miller mug with
Coke, to save on a first stop, and proceeded to drive to the Camino Real
markers. Between Cedar Creek and Mt. Olive, I had to hit the head. I thought
that was wierd, as I had barely touched my Coke. I bought a bottled water for
later, and continued on. Repeat many more times than normal. I knew something
was up when I had a pile of untouched Cokes and bottled water on the floor of
the car, and a stop every thirty minutes or so for watering the tires.
Throughout the rest of the trip, I'd be suddenly running to
the rest room ever hour to two hours. I was never thirsty, though, and so
nothing in my mind tripped except for "prostate problems?" My dad
had just had just mentioned he was having that problem, and it never occured to
me that with all the hormones I'm taking, my prostate is all atrophied and
shrunken anyways. Maybe it was that I was just sick. Through the whole trip,
I'd developed an incredibly bad cough that I just couldn't get rid of, as well
as a boil that had started forming a the end of the trip.
Coming back to Washington my cough had begun to drop away,
the boil was getting much worse, and suddenly I was very very very thirsty all
the time. I had also begun wheezing, instead of coughing. I began thinking it
was a serious bronchitis problem and general illness. The day I came back to
AwesomeJob, I weighed myself using Wii Fit, and noticed I'd lost 12 pounds.
Some friends and I simply thought it was the lack of stress and more excersize
than normal.
Coming back to AwesomeJob during Christmas, the Cafe
AwesomeJob Tradmarked Character was closed, and the management brought in
snacks, mostly sweets. I ws feeling sickly one day, and was hoping that a
quick sugar rush would pep me up a bit, so I picked up a Krispy Kreme Maple
Bar. I had no idea what was going on then, I figured maybe it was lack of
sleep, but shortly after I ate that, my brain went out to lunch. I barely
remember anything from that day, other than, I couldn't concentrate for the
life of me. The next day I wasn't much better, the boil popped making a mess
and stink of things, and my wheezing got worse. I had to see a doctor. I
signed up for insurance that night, hedging my bets that I'd be covered in case
anything happened.
I had the next two days off, and while I slowly got better,
I was still worried, and set up an appointment with a new doctor to see me. I
went the next day, and she poked, prodded, and tested. We couldn't do much as
I had no insurance cards and I would have to pay for everything out of pocket,
but she basically brought up my worst fear: I was an unconfirmed diabetic.
She couldn't definitively say as all the tests, other than the A1C, were
unaffordable, and the A1C had to be sent off. My hopes were dashed.
In my mother's side of the family, diabetes is a curse.
Everyone gets it, everyone gets massively sick off it, and everyone dies of
complications from it. It's never a matter of if you get it, but when. I'd
hoped I'd skirted the curse, as my mom and sister don't have diabetes, and they
were much less healthy than I was (it was only after my own diagnosis that I
found out my sister was now also diabetic...Mom I think scared diabetes away).
While there wasn't a diagnosis, it was knocking on my door.
Dr. Sealey, because of my money issues, only gave me
prescriptions for what I absolutely needed, Zithromax for my cough (we were
still thinking the cough was from the frequent bronchitis my sister and I
get). I picked it up and began taking it. I had a sushi dinner that last
night, knowing full well it'd be the last real "don't need to think about
it" meal I'd be able to have in a long time. I didn't realize something,
though: Sushi has rice. LOTS of rice.
The next day I came to work feeling a lot better than I had
been. I drank only diet sodas, had low carb meals, as best I could, made sure
I kept out the sugars and carbs. And, to my credit, the bathrooms trips
dropped - however, looking back, this could either be taking care of myself a bit,
or total dehydration. All day I'd been fighting a very mild nausea, something
I attributed to lack of sleep (I still have trouble sleeping at night, and end
up with 5 to 6 hours of sleep on work days). I had a light meal for lunch (as
light as Cafe AwesomeJob Trademarked Character could make), and the nausea
continued. That evening, I had a salad, and bought some baked chicken. I was
so sick to my stomach, though, I only had the salad. I went to sleep with a
fan pointing right at me as my wheeze had begun to develop again.
The next day I woke up, and couldn't get out of bed. I laid
there a LONG time, determining if just a few more hours of sleep would help me
shake of the bronchitis which was now full blown gasping for air. Then the
vomiting began. Constantly, until there wasn't anything left to vomit...and I
continued. It had happened to me before, and was gastrointeritis. I was
thinking with the possible bronchitis, the possible gastroenteritis, the
possible diabetes, I was just exhausted. I was also feeling very tired from
the constant lack of sleep.
There was a moment when everything could have changed for
the worst. Feeling exhausted, all I could think of was "You are very very
sick, go to the emergency room" and "You are very very poor, good bed
rest will kick the gastroenteritis and bronchitis away." I decided
"Emergency Room." According to the doctors, if I'd gone back to
sleep, especially with how I was feeling and what they knew then, I would have
most likely slipped into a diabetic coma. If no one had checked on me, the
results could have been very very dire. According to my pocketbook, I may have
been more financially better off if I'd gone into the coma.
I crawled out of bed, and the world was spinning, and I knew
I was in trouble. Lots of blurry tunnel vision and dizziness. At the old
house, I lived in a basement bedroom, I managed to make it to the stairs, but I
didn't have the strength to actually walk up the stairs. Instead I had to
crawl, and it felt like it took forever to get up the stairs. It was actually
ten minutes. When I finally got to Morgan's door, I asked him to please take
me to the Emergency Room. Once in the car, I collapsed into the seat and
fought hard to stay awake. He and Loren whisked me off to the emergency room.
They were quick at the emergnecy room. From the moment I
walked in, I was whisked away to a back room, filled out paperwork, everyone
was taking vitals right away. According to them, I was a very very very sick
little girl. From there, they trolleyed me into an emergency room, where I
layed down, trying hard not to fall asleep (they were really pushing me hard to
not sleep). I caught up with some internet stuff on the phone (love that
internet-everywhere smartphone) to stay awake, and updated everyone on my
list. they suspected a lot of things at first. I had a CT scan for abdominal
issues, X-Rays for my breathing issues, and a standard blood panel to make sure
everything was okay there.
The Cat Scan was a hoot. My nurse was very funny, first of
all, and offered me a barium piña colada for the CT scan in a commemorative
hospital stay mug. Had to drink a whole two quarts of the stuff in 60
minutes. I got one down, and about another quarter down before my stomach said
"HEY! I HAVE STUFF IN ME! I CAN START HEAVING AGAIN!"
I put Linda Blair to shame.
Also, kudos to HTC for making the MyTouch 3G
Slide...um...barium resistant.
There was nothing in my lungs, nothing wrong with my
abdomen, but the A1C showed that my blood sugar levels massively elevated. I
heard the nurses mumbling 400 around, but I found out later my number was above
600 from the hospital doctor later. They were admitting me for several days of
observation and intensive care. I was rolled into the intensive care unit,
where I spent the next 24 or so hours. I was finally allowed to sleep, but
didn't get much as they were coming in every hour or so to check my blood sugar
and the newly implanted saline and insulin drips.
My time in the ICU was rather boring. Doctors and nurses
came in and out all day and all night (in one case scaring me awake when they
mistakenly seved me coffee I'd never ordered at 5:30 in the morning). Morgan
and Loren visited (bringing me a much needed charger for my phone, and books),
but most of the day was me staring at the cieling, staring at the TV, and
occasionally walking around as much as the IVs would let me (they gave me a
chair to sit in when I was feeling much better, and it was nice to sit and not
recline).
Once my blood level dropped to about 300, they moved me into
a regular hospital room, where I had a mostly uninterrupted sleep (they did
something to my stomach that startled me awake at one point, and ended up
leaving me with a gigantic bruise, whic still hasn't completely dissapeared
almost two months later). It was here that the education began. Most began
with a drill of "You're diabetic, and here's your new routine." Most
were surprised that I already knew a lot of what needed to be done. Back in
2002, I'd taken care of my friends' diabetic son, and while I didn't know how
to inject insulin (I was petrified I'd hurt Sean, and he had a pump, so it was
deemed unecessary), I knew how to do a blood sugar check, and count carbs and boluses
and whatnot. The nurse assigned to teach me how to check my blood sugar was
surprised when I began checking my sugar as she was laying out the stuff on the
table).
I was really surprised at the nutritionist they'd sent to
me. Most of the stuff I'd heard about them was that they were very much like
fire and brimstone revivalist preachers: DO THIS OR DIE. And, honestly, the
one sent to me was somewhat fire and brimstony until I mentioned I'd taken care
of Sean's diet (I didn't mention the popcorn incident), and also cooked most of
my own food. She immediately flipped to "oh, you know how to cook,
then!" Instead of coming down hard on what I could and couldn't eat, she
focused more on ingredients and how to count them when cooking to make meals.
She even commented that Dr. Chase's diet was excellent for what I was doing, as
long as I'd counted absolutely everything. She gave me no specific numbers to
follow ("They're different for everyone and will change"), but I took
her advice, and the prescription diet the doctors put me on (2000 calories, no
more than 60g carbs per meal) in the hospital, and began to try adapting to it
in my head. Most of my diabetic friends said 60g was too high, and 45g was
more normal, so I made 45g a soft limit, and 60g a hard limit.
The insulin injections were worrying for a while, and I
think the nurse was expecting a fight over it. I asked her if she wouldn't
mind doing the first one, and she showed it to me very plainly. The needle
went in, and I didn't feel a thing, which is what I was most worried about.
The next time, she kinda came in with a "ok, we're playing the game MY way
now!" look, as if she was expecting me to resist, but I'd already mastered
the blood sugar testing, and followed her instructions to the letter from the
previous time, and injected myself with no problem. Been doing it ever since,
and only managed to nearly kill myself two and a half times (30 units of fast
insulin is not 30 units of slow insulin).
I was released that afternoon, with a day off to get my
bearings on my new schedule (Eat specifically at 9, 2 and 7) and new menu.
Cooking my own stuff has never been much of a problem (The Sweet and Sour Pork and Rice
were problematic, cause there was a much higher rice-to-pork ratio than I'd
expected), and my roomies have learned to adjust to my new menu (last night, we
had Hanbao, asparagus and apple salad, and my numbers were EXCELLENT). Eating
out took a bit of practice, but I've learned to take a standard serving of
anything at a restaurant and divide it by three. It keeps the sugar level
normal, though I'm sure the fat levels are still high.
I've been excersizing. Since coming home from the hospital,
I walked a mile every day at lunch, and 15 minutes of Wii Fit. Since we've
moved, I've kinda been lax on the Wii Fit, but my one mile walk has become a
1.6 mile walk at lunch, and the new place is only .8 miles from work, making
3.2 miles a day of walking. I'm hoping to get back to my late 80s, early 90s
bike riding self, eventually.
I've lost 50 pounds since going to Texas. I swear my skin
is softer, and my hair is longer (it's been the same length since my last
haircut in 2001). I have a figure of some sort. I have energy like you
wouldn't believe. I feel great, and while my new life has some inconveniences,
they're not intolerable.
This is the worst thing, AND the best thing, to every happen
to me.
If you remember that day (http://jenndolari.livejournal.com/2010/12/02), that
was a big roadtrip up the Camino Real. On these roadtrips, I buy a Coke and
drive drive drive. If I get thirsty again (or need to stop in to a convenience
store to visit the facilities), I'll buy some bottled water. I almost never
need more than two Cokes/Water, and even then, that's only for LONG trips.
When I left Dean's house, I filled up a Bill Miller mug with
Coke, to save on a first stop, and proceeded to drive to the Camino Real
markers. Between Cedar Creek and Mt. Olive, I had to hit the head. I thought
that was wierd, as I had barely touched my Coke. I bought a bottled water for
later, and continued on. Repeat many more times than normal. I knew something
was up when I had a pile of untouched Cokes and bottled water on the floor of
the car, and a stop every thirty minutes or so for watering the tires.
Throughout the rest of the trip, I'd be suddenly running to
the rest room ever hour to two hours. I was never thirsty, though, and so
nothing in my mind tripped except for "prostate problems?" My dad
had just had just mentioned he was having that problem, and it never occured to
me that with all the hormones I'm taking, my prostate is all atrophied and
shrunken anyways. Maybe it was that I was just sick. Through the whole trip,
I'd developed an incredibly bad cough that I just couldn't get rid of, as well
as a boil that had started forming a the end of the trip.
Coming back to Washington my cough had begun to drop away,
the boil was getting much worse, and suddenly I was very very very thirsty all
the time. I had also begun wheezing, instead of coughing. I began thinking it
was a serious bronchitis problem and general illness. The day I came back to
AwesomeJob, I weighed myself using Wii Fit, and noticed I'd lost 12 pounds.
Some friends and I simply thought it was the lack of stress and more excersize
than normal.
Coming back to AwesomeJob during Christmas, the Cafe
AwesomeJob Tradmarked Character was closed, and the management brought in
snacks, mostly sweets. I ws feeling sickly one day, and was hoping that a
quick sugar rush would pep me up a bit, so I picked up a Krispy Kreme Maple
Bar. I had no idea what was going on then, I figured maybe it was lack of
sleep, but shortly after I ate that, my brain went out to lunch. I barely
remember anything from that day, other than, I couldn't concentrate for the
life of me. The next day I wasn't much better, the boil popped making a mess
and stink of things, and my wheezing got worse. I had to see a doctor. I
signed up for insurance that night, hedging my bets that I'd be covered in case
anything happened.
I had the next two days off, and while I slowly got better,
I was still worried, and set up an appointment with a new doctor to see me. I
went the next day, and she poked, prodded, and tested. We couldn't do much as
I had no insurance cards and I would have to pay for everything out of pocket,
but she basically brought up my worst fear: I was an unconfirmed diabetic.
She couldn't definitively say as all the tests, other than the A1C, were
unaffordable, and the A1C had to be sent off. My hopes were dashed.
In my mother's side of the family, diabetes is a curse.
Everyone gets it, everyone gets massively sick off it, and everyone dies of
complications from it. It's never a matter of if you get it, but when. I'd
hoped I'd skirted the curse, as my mom and sister don't have diabetes, and they
were much less healthy than I was (it was only after my own diagnosis that I
found out my sister was now also diabetic...Mom I think scared diabetes away).
While there wasn't a diagnosis, it was knocking on my door.
Dr. Sealey, because of my money issues, only gave me
prescriptions for what I absolutely needed, Zithromax for my cough (we were
still thinking the cough was from the frequent bronchitis my sister and I
get). I picked it up and began taking it. I had a sushi dinner that last
night, knowing full well it'd be the last real "don't need to think about
it" meal I'd be able to have in a long time. I didn't realize something,
though: Sushi has rice. LOTS of rice.
The next day I came to work feeling a lot better than I had
been. I drank only diet sodas, had low carb meals, as best I could, made sure
I kept out the sugars and carbs. And, to my credit, the bathrooms trips
dropped - however, looking back, this could either be taking care of myself a bit,
or total dehydration. All day I'd been fighting a very mild nausea, something
I attributed to lack of sleep (I still have trouble sleeping at night, and end
up with 5 to 6 hours of sleep on work days). I had a light meal for lunch (as
light as Cafe AwesomeJob Trademarked Character could make), and the nausea
continued. That evening, I had a salad, and bought some baked chicken. I was
so sick to my stomach, though, I only had the salad. I went to sleep with a
fan pointing right at me as my wheeze had begun to develop again.
The next day I woke up, and couldn't get out of bed. I laid
there a LONG time, determining if just a few more hours of sleep would help me
shake of the bronchitis which was now full blown gasping for air. Then the
vomiting began. Constantly, until there wasn't anything left to vomit...and I
continued. It had happened to me before, and was gastrointeritis. I was
thinking with the possible bronchitis, the possible gastroenteritis, the
possible diabetes, I was just exhausted. I was also feeling very tired from
the constant lack of sleep.
There was a moment when everything could have changed for
the worst. Feeling exhausted, all I could think of was "You are very very
sick, go to the emergency room" and "You are very very poor, good bed
rest will kick the gastroenteritis and bronchitis away." I decided
"Emergency Room." According to the doctors, if I'd gone back to
sleep, especially with how I was feeling and what they knew then, I would have
most likely slipped into a diabetic coma. If no one had checked on me, the
results could have been very very dire. According to my pocketbook, I may have
been more financially better off if I'd gone into the coma.
I crawled out of bed, and the world was spinning, and I knew
I was in trouble. Lots of blurry tunnel vision and dizziness. At the old
house, I lived in a basement bedroom, I managed to make it to the stairs, but I
didn't have the strength to actually walk up the stairs. Instead I had to
crawl, and it felt like it took forever to get up the stairs. It was actually
ten minutes. When I finally got to Morgan's door, I asked him to please take
me to the Emergency Room. Once in the car, I collapsed into the seat and
fought hard to stay awake. He and Loren whisked me off to the emergency room.
They were quick at the emergnecy room. From the moment I
walked in, I was whisked away to a back room, filled out paperwork, everyone
was taking vitals right away. According to them, I was a very very very sick
little girl. From there, they trolleyed me into an emergency room, where I
layed down, trying hard not to fall asleep (they were really pushing me hard to
not sleep). I caught up with some internet stuff on the phone (love that
internet-everywhere smartphone) to stay awake, and updated everyone on my
list. they suspected a lot of things at first. I had a CT scan for abdominal
issues, X-Rays for my breathing issues, and a standard blood panel to make sure
everything was okay there.
The Cat Scan was a hoot. My nurse was very funny, first of
all, and offered me a barium piña colada for the CT scan in a commemorative
hospital stay mug. Had to drink a whole two quarts of the stuff in 60
minutes. I got one down, and about another quarter down before my stomach said
"HEY! I HAVE STUFF IN ME! I CAN START HEAVING AGAIN!"
I put Linda Blair to shame.
Also, kudos to HTC for making the MyTouch 3G
Slide...um...barium resistant.
There was nothing in my lungs, nothing wrong with my
abdomen, but the A1C showed that my blood sugar levels massively elevated. I
heard the nurses mumbling 400 around, but I found out later my number was above
600 from the hospital doctor later. They were admitting me for several days of
observation and intensive care. I was rolled into the intensive care unit,
where I spent the next 24 or so hours. I was finally allowed to sleep, but
didn't get much as they were coming in every hour or so to check my blood sugar
and the newly implanted saline and insulin drips.
My time in the ICU was rather boring. Doctors and nurses
came in and out all day and all night (in one case scaring me awake when they
mistakenly seved me coffee I'd never ordered at 5:30 in the morning). Morgan
and Loren visited (bringing me a much needed charger for my phone, and books),
but most of the day was me staring at the cieling, staring at the TV, and
occasionally walking around as much as the IVs would let me (they gave me a
chair to sit in when I was feeling much better, and it was nice to sit and not
recline).
Once my blood level dropped to about 300, they moved me into
a regular hospital room, where I had a mostly uninterrupted sleep (they did
something to my stomach that startled me awake at one point, and ended up
leaving me with a gigantic bruise, whic still hasn't completely dissapeared
almost two months later). It was here that the education began. Most began
with a drill of "You're diabetic, and here's your new routine." Most
were surprised that I already knew a lot of what needed to be done. Back in
2002, I'd taken care of my friends' diabetic son, and while I didn't know how
to inject insulin (I was petrified I'd hurt Sean, and he had a pump, so it was
deemed unecessary), I knew how to do a blood sugar check, and count carbs and boluses
and whatnot. The nurse assigned to teach me how to check my blood sugar was
surprised when I began checking my sugar as she was laying out the stuff on the
table).
I was really surprised at the nutritionist they'd sent to
me. Most of the stuff I'd heard about them was that they were very much like
fire and brimstone revivalist preachers: DO THIS OR DIE. And, honestly, the
one sent to me was somewhat fire and brimstony until I mentioned I'd taken care
of Sean's diet (I didn't mention the popcorn incident), and also cooked most of
my own food. She immediately flipped to "oh, you know how to cook,
then!" Instead of coming down hard on what I could and couldn't eat, she
focused more on ingredients and how to count them when cooking to make meals.
She even commented that Dr. Chase's diet was excellent for what I was doing, as
long as I'd counted absolutely everything. She gave me no specific numbers to
follow ("They're different for everyone and will change"), but I took
her advice, and the prescription diet the doctors put me on (2000 calories, no
more than 60g carbs per meal) in the hospital, and began to try adapting to it
in my head. Most of my diabetic friends said 60g was too high, and 45g was
more normal, so I made 45g a soft limit, and 60g a hard limit.
The insulin injections were worrying for a while, and I
think the nurse was expecting a fight over it. I asked her if she wouldn't
mind doing the first one, and she showed it to me very plainly. The needle
went in, and I didn't feel a thing, which is what I was most worried about.
The next time, she kinda came in with a "ok, we're playing the game MY way
now!" look, as if she was expecting me to resist, but I'd already mastered
the blood sugar testing, and followed her instructions to the letter from the
previous time, and injected myself with no problem. Been doing it ever since,
and only managed to nearly kill myself two and a half times (30 units of fast
insulin is not 30 units of slow insulin).
I was released that afternoon, with a day off to get my
bearings on my new schedule (Eat specifically at 9, 2 and 7) and new menu.
Cooking my own stuff has never been much of a problem (The Sweet and Sour Pork and Rice
were problematic, cause there was a much higher rice-to-pork ratio than I'd
expected), and my roomies have learned to adjust to my new menu (last night, we
had Hanbao, asparagus and apple salad, and my numbers were EXCELLENT). Eating
out took a bit of practice, but I've learned to take a standard serving of
anything at a restaurant and divide it by three. It keeps the sugar level
normal, though I'm sure the fat levels are still high.
I've been excersizing. Since coming home from the hospital,
I walked a mile every day at lunch, and 15 minutes of Wii Fit. Since we've
moved, I've kinda been lax on the Wii Fit, but my one mile walk has become a
1.6 mile walk at lunch, and the new place is only .8 miles from work, making
3.2 miles a day of walking. I'm hoping to get back to my late 80s, early 90s
bike riding self, eventually.
I've lost 50 pounds since going to Texas. I swear my skin
is softer, and my hair is longer (it's been the same length since my last
haircut in 2001). I have a figure of some sort. I have energy like you
wouldn't believe. I feel great, and while my new life has some inconveniences,
they're not intolerable.
This is the worst thing, AND the best thing, to every happen
to me.
