When you arrive at the hospital in an ambulance I found, the check-in process is pretty perfunctory. There is the obligatory show of insurance cards and a few things to sign, but they want to get you to a room and into care pretty quickly. I was just feeling glad to be there in this bastion of medical competence, glad that Kaelan didn’t end up in the ICU, and extremely impressed by the warm welcome we received. Kaelan was pretty out of it. He was transferred to a hospital bed, hooked up to an IV and given both a saline drip to combat his dehydration and insulin to help bring down his glucose. I sat right next to him for a number of hours so he would see me if he woke up, but eventually my need for sleep won over.
The room itself was immaculate and cheery. It actually had a curtained off convertible sofa that made into a queen size bed for me, complete with pillows and blankets. The nurses gave me a dop kit including all the toiletries you would need for a short stay, some clean scrubs to sleep in, and a few hospital grade snacks. I was home – at least for the short term and after a final call to my husband to update him on Kaelan’s status, laid down to sleep.
In spite of the creature comforts, the night was a bit fitfull. The nurses were in and out frequently to check my son’s blood glucose levels and vital signs. I chatted with them occasionally to understand what was happening. His glucose levels were dropping, but very slowly, and apparently that was the plan. They actually didn’t want him to go below 200 in the early stages as there are some very bad unintended consequences of dropping too quickly – like hypoglycemia, but more about that later.
Kaelan slept deep and long. When he woke up, he felt a bit better, and was starving. He wanted to eat but that was not allowed on the first day. I think they only gave him ice chips and something to suck on, but no real food. He had a TV but was not really into it and still spent most of his time sleeping. I was both spending time with him, and calling the office to fill them in, clear my schedule for a few days, and work out who could take over the tasks that were urgent. My husband came around noon to bring clothes and other items from home. He brought my computer so that I could keep up with work and an iPad for K who was pretty excited to get a free pass on screen time. Both of us started doing our own queries on diabetes, what to expect, how it is treated, etc. and sharing stories and websites and forum names based on where we found good insights. I became familiar with the hospital and wolfed down some food each meal time in the cafeteria as I didn’t want to eat in front of K. I remember they had cheesesteaks, or at least an impression of a cheesesteak. These were some of K’s favorites so I felt deeply guilty, but they seemed like comfort food in that moment.
Kaelan had a long sleep again that night, but in the morning he seemed to have really turned a corner. He was more alert, and his sarcasm and sense of humor were back in play. The nurses had started to educate him on what it meant to be insulin dependent, about basal insulin and needing to give insulin before meals to process carbs. They wanted him to start practicing with regular food and gave him a menu, from which he could choose absolutely anything. He chose fettuccine alfredo for lunch which was fine with the nurses. I remember being shocked that they would let him choose something so full of fat and carbs. It seemed like a very unhealthy choice, but that was the point. They wanted him to understand that he could eat anything he wanted as long as he had enough insulin to support it. They showed him an insulin pen, talked about how many carbs were in the meal, allowed him to consider and dial up the proper dose, and then asked us both if who was going to actually give the shot. He was absolutely insistent that it should be him and that he might as well learn now. I was so incredibly proud of him but also heartbroken and saddened that this was going to be a fixture in his life: counting every carb, calculating every insulin dose, having to take on all of the tasks that the body and the pancreas are supposed to do for you. It seemed like a lot to take on. I wasn’t so much in a “why him?”, “why us?” mode, because I really think that everyone deals with some adversity, you just don’t know what it’s going to be. It was more like I was in a “this really sucks” mode, but at the same time, “it could be worse”.
Initially they had told us that he might go home on day 2, but as it turned out he was not quite where they wanted him to be, both in terms of his glucose levels but also in terms of the amount of time he had to practice with giving himself insulin. So we spent another night and the next day in the hospital with K getting visibly stronger and more like himself. He was also filling in a little from the replacement all of the fluids that he had lost, so he just looked all around better. I was starting to feel like he was going to be able to deal with this. He was nothing if not confident, at least on the surface. The kid is brave, I’ll say that. You have to be.
We headed home glad to be returning to some sense of the routine. K was back in his own room. There were pets to snuggle, game consoles to be played, homework to make up, a brother to abuse him, his grandmother to dote on him, and school and a new reality to confront. My husband and I were frightened for him, about all of the things diabetes can do both in the short and long term, but you do what you have to do. So from day one we made it our mission to make sure that this disease would not change his life or his possibilities, and we began the very steep learning curve required to meet the challenge.
Growing up T1D 