B.B. King and The Baby Sitters Club

On the way to the hospital I admitted to Jeff "you know... all I really know about diabetes is from watching those stupid commercials ... like with B.B. King" and "one of my favorite characters from the babysitters club books I used to read in elementary school had diabetes.... she could never eat sweets." Ironically our family resource center director had spoken with me earlier that very same day asking if I could order some good resources for students with diabetes at our school. Little would she know that within 48 hours of that conversation I'd be a pseudo-expert.

UK Children’s was amazing. The nurses wonderful. Our doctor awesomely fantastic (seriously like the greatest doctor ever). Over all if I'd just been visiting I'd have given it high marks. haha.

Upon arrival Saul's BG was 859 (for the non-diabetic community... which I assume is most everyone who will read this) that’s like... high... like critical high... like I spoke with someone whose daughter was 1000 and in intensive care for 4 days high.  He’s supposed to be between 100-200 for reference. But he was alert, talking being somewhat "typical" Saul. He still had large traces of ketones and the immediate plan of action was to get insulin in him.

So what I quickly learned is this.

Type 1 diabetes (used to be called Juvenile diabetes) is an auto-immune disorder. Saul’s pancreas in a matter of 4 days had quit functioning. Because his pancreas no longer worked he quit making insulin. So his blood was sitting there like Karo syrup (our Dr.'s analogy... which I liked... cause I like Karo syrup... but in retrospect I guess I shouldn't like that so much cause that’s a bad thing not a good thing). His body reacted by trying to excrete (which is why he was peeing so much) and when I mean peeing… I mean peeing…. Like a lot. I mean like not just going to the bathroom numerous times- I'm talking about every single time he pee'd it went from his neck to his toes (and yes with a diaper on). Anyway. Because he was peeing so much his body told him to drink more which is why you could find him drinking anything in sight including water from the dog bowl (I'm kidding Mom... although you and I both know it wouldn't be that much of a stretch). Both Dr. K and Dr. Irene have told me most likely Saul developed this in utero. Which makes me wonder (although I know I know I know and have been told over and over and over NO) if there was anything I could have done differently. He definitely has had diabetes since birth. Although things just got bad enough (say the past week or so) for us to start noticing signs.

He got his first dose of insulin and like that numbers dropped. and dropped. and dropped. and dropped till we were hitting say the "critical low" point. At which time I realized with him we must always be "in range" never too high (scary bad things happen) and never to low (even scarier bad things happen).

And so began the process of "regulation" which unfortunately is continuing today and which they tell me may continue for days and possibly weeks to come.