Sure signs I'm a newbie...

Daniel walker himself into emergency, but when they finally got to him over an hour later with my husband pushing them to check, he was quickly hooked up to a drip and insulin. His BG was over 1000. They couldn' t even chart it. He was so dehydrated. It was very difficult ti find any good veins. He was transferred from our local hospital to another about 30 minutes away that could handle pediatrics intensive care. It took about 3 days to get him to stop throwing up. Yes large ketones. He was in the hospital 5 days. I find it still very emotional to talk about. I just remember the doctor telling in emergency that they were waiting for him to pee with all the fluids they were pushing. I asked "why?"... Because they wanted a sign that his kidneys weren't shutting down..The educator was short and brief teaching us a lifetime of care in an hour one day and hour another...But I remember the smile on my son's face when the dogs were brought in to visit and when he got to eat his first strip of bacon. I will work on keeping those images in my mind and not so much the ones that broke my heart the day of his diagnosis.

 

I know that we both had to pass a test, a written test, on basic D emergency and management before she could be discharged from the hospital. Her bg was 375 at dx, not in DKA and I don't know what her A1c was. Dxd on Friday afternoon, admitted to Yale right away, discharged on Tuesday.

I just think that anytime newly dx'd kids are being injected with insulin by newly trained parents there is risk of hypos, but clearly you survived and didn't feel uncomfortable, so it's all good.

As for asking where you were located, I thought you might not be in the US. Things vary quite a bit around the world when it comes to dx practices and CWD has a global reach so you might have been posting from anywhere.

 

at dx not sure what Taylors A1C was but we took her into the on call dr my mom worked for, since we were visiting there for a wedding, well Taylor was wetting the bed so I took her in for a quick UA so she could be on antibiotics for Disneyland. That is when they came in and asked me if we had diabetes in the family we said yes and he gave her insulin at the office till her #"s dropped then sent us home with a glucometer insulin and no other instructions.
Came back home and her #"s were dropping like crazy the dr had her on 2 units of insulin no matter what she ate (can you tell he doesnt deal with type 1) so after a few days of dealing with that issue I called the childrens hospital closest to us and we were headed back to Ut (4hrs) and they admitted us just for the training. At the hospital I believe her A1C was in the 7's and she had no ketones. Even though my BIL is diabetic all those thoughts go out the window. We werent even told how to treat lows we were very lucky nothing happened to her those 3 days.

 

Jacob's A1C at diagnosis was somewhere in the upper 8's and I believe his BG's were in the 800's. Fortunately he wasn't sick yet, but our pediatrician had us go to the hospital asap upon seeing the high BG (I thought he had a bladder infection!). I remember thinking why in the heck to we have to stay in the hospital?! i soon realized how important it was that we had all that diabetes education in the four days we stayed!

Stephanie, Mom to Jacob age 9
Dx since 2005, pumping with MM

 

Don't worry about asking questions. This is the place for fast, quality answers :cwds:

I missed all the signs - Bobby was thirsty, peeing a lot, losing weight, but that meant nothing to me as I knew nothing about D. I thought it was just the flu or some random bug. When he started throwing up I wasn't too concerned - again, flu. 2nd day of puking I called the pediatrician, fulling expecting to be told "he has a bug, rest and liquids". Wow was I wrong. Didn't go that way at all - ped told me he was diabetic and that we needed to leave and go directly to the ER at Children's Hospital.

Our Children's Hospital is a madhouse - if you go to the ER you plan to wait for HOURS (people actually bring coolers!) The moment I realized that things were serious was when I gave our name at the ER desk and someone came out to get us immediately. That fast service out of them scared me to death.

He was hospitalized for a few days. I honestly don't know if he was in DKA - there's so much I don't remember or just didn't understand at the time. I do remember hearing the docs discussing ketones quite a bit, but again that meant nothing to me at the time. A1C was around 11.5 I think.

They provided a ton of info and basic training while we were there, most of which I didn't absorb because I was too busy freaking out. They made sure we had the bare basics downpat, and everyone had taken at least 1 turn at doing a bg check and giving a shot before they discharged us. Then we attended a series of classes after discharge as well. Seems like a million years ago now. Weird. But I guess testament to the fact that sooner than you think all this D stuff is just going to become your normal. :cwds:

 

I brought Max to our GP. He was spilling glucose, no ketones but his doc said it was because of the smoothie he was drinking. This was a Wednesday. He was wetting the bed and had lost 5 lb and the doc told me it was probably a UTI and to limit his fluids after 6:00 p.m. I knew in my heart it was diabetes. Come Thursday and Friday I was finding empty glasses of water all over the kitchen and he was in literal tears when I told him he couldn't have anything more to drink - so he started sneaking it. Friday night was really bad; drinking, peeing, drinking, peeing all night. We obviously realized something was very wrong so we took him to Children's first thing Saturday morning. I told the triage nurse his symptoms, they poked his finger on the spot and he was 198 fasting and we were in a room and Endo was there within 15 minutes. HgbA1c was 8.6. He had ketones but was not in DKA. They gave him 2 units of Levemir and sent us home with instructions to come back in the morning for more insulin and breakfast and not to limit what he ate. Then we started 3 full days of intense training.

 

Reading through these responses, it's amazing how the A1Cs and bg levels seem to have no bearing on whether hospitalization was required or not. My son was diagnosed with an A1c of 10, no ketones, no hospitalization and bg readings of HI which I understand is over 600. But he sat there hanging out, chatting and waiting for this thing called blood glucose to go down so we could go home. I was so relieved that day to know I wasn't crazy - having noticed his weight loss and mood changes. Little did I know or fully undertsnad the journey we were beginning....

 

J had an A1c of 14.5, which has steadily dropped since then, except for his last one, which was up just a bit.
His BG was 461.

He had medium ketones, IIRC and was hospitalized. No DKA, no PICU just went to the ER per his GP's orders and he was admitted for three days, mostly for our education.

I'm glad he was hospitalized. I was afraid to take him home that third night, and they offered us the chance to stay one more night, but we had a snowstorm due to arrive that day and I didn't want to be stuck there any longer than necessary!

Lows were a big part of our education and I was terrified of them at first.

 

Ketone levels and whether the child is in DKA have a far greater bearing on hospitalisation, I think.

 

My daughter's A1C was an 11.2, and her fasting BG was 250. There was a delay getting her into the pediatric endo due to some confusion, so we took her to ER 18 days later when her BGs went over 300. (We'd been monitoring them at home.) She wasn't in DKA, but she started on insulin that night. We had two days of training and then brought her home. I had followed the ambulance that transferred her, and she later told me that the nurses had asked her why she was there, apart from her sugars being elevated. They told me she was the healthiest new diagnosis they'd seen.

 

My A1c was too high to be measured at whatever lab did the measuring; over 16%. I was in DKA and spent Friday through Tuesday in the hospital. I probably would have gotten out on Monday but they wanted me to wait to see the CDE, nutritionist, and counselor, and Monday was labor day so I waited. I think my parents were glad- they were really scared to take me home.

 

A1c was 13, bg around 500. Major DKA with shortness of breath. Spent two days in PICU on IV and last day on shots. Went straight from the hospital to the education classes at the endo's clinic on the hospital campus. Came back two more days for more more education. It was head spinning!

 

DD's a1c was in the 9's, I think. Our first follow-up (2 weeks later) and it was 10.2.

We suspected diabetes - peeing a lot, always thirsty, losing weight - and made an appointment with the ped to have her checked. She said that DD was spilling glucose (urine) and a 496 bg. I had no idea if that meant she was diabetic Doc said she was, then gave me the name of the ped endo at Children's that would be at the hospital when we arrived. We drove there, got admitted, began training. Standard stay is two nights so we stayed two nights. Met with the nutritionist and child life specialist and insurance liaison and everyone else you could possibly think of.

I'm really glad we noticed the symptoms and had her checked. If she hadn't already been potty trained, I don't know that we would have noticed as quickly because it was the incredibly frequent urinating that tipped us off.

 

A1C was 16 something...I think. I have blocked the memory of the actual number.

BG on admission was 969.

She was in DKA.

3 days in PICU and 2 on the regular floor. Massive training throughout, and the doctor would not release her until he was comfortable with our knowledge of highs, lows, ketones, DKA, injections, carb counting, etc...etc...

 

Every parent's nightmare after diagnosis! I begged them to keep us for another night as I couldn't handle a newborn and a newly-diagnosed ~K on my own. I felt like I was going to mess up so badly that she'd be in trouble. DH was in Tokyo with the other girls and we were pretty much on our own in Chicago.

 

Ella's was almost 11 with her BG in the 600's. We were flown (as in a helicopter ) from our local hospital to John's Hopkins where she spent a day in the PICU and then 4 days in a regular room...

Her current A1C is 6.9 but that will change today. And not for the better. It's been a rough 3 months .

 

Long and short of it, I called the pediatrician questioning whether or not DS had diabetes as he was drinking a lot and peeing a lot. I was thinking I was being a hypochondriac about it. The nurse wasn't overly concerned and I let it go, but something made me call them back and ask how they would test him to know for sure. The nurse said they would check his urine. I said I could do this at home since my DD had a kidney disease and I was used to dipping urine. So I went off to Target and bought urine dipsticks and came home. They sat in the shopping bag all day and at about 5:30pm I checked DS. It was VERY positive for glucose. Thinking the sticks were broken, I tested him again, and they were dark brown for glucose (highest the stick would read). Still thinking they were broken, I tested myself and it was negative. At this point, I was thinking it could be a hundred things causing glucose in the urine (because there was no way my son would have diabetes...we had NO family history, etc.) and I called to doctor's office back. They asked if DS was nauseous or vomiting (he was not) and asked me to bring him in at 7pm.

I did and when we got there he had to pee again (mind you, I live about 10 min from the doctor's office and he just went at home). He gave a sample and we went in a room. They said it was positive for glucose and ketones (I don't know how much, I didn't think to ask). The nurse tried to measure his BG on a meter and it just said HI. I thought it was broken and asked her to try again (little did I know). She humored me, didn't say anything and said she would let the MD know. Later on the doctor told me their meters only measured up to 300 and if the BG was higher than that it would simply say HI. The doctor came into the room a few minutes later and the look on his face said it all before he even opened his mouth. At the time, DS was crying...I was kind of numb...thinking we can do this...no big deal. Oh, little did I know the roller coaster we were getting on!

It was around 8:00pm at night now and since DS wasn't really "sick" the doctor and the endo phone conferenced and decided we could go home that night and show up at the hospital 1st thing in the am. The hospital is a good 1 1/2 hours away with no traffic...traffic makes it easily 2 hours. We were told if DS had any N/V during the night to go the ER right away. We went home and tried to sleep. Well DS slept, I laid in bed numbly.

Showed up at the hospital at 8am the next day. We saw the endo in the waiting room at 9am and he took one look at DS and said he wasn't "sick" enough to be admitted and we would do outpatient teaching. At the hospital DS's A1C was 9.8% and his initial BG was 447. He did have ketones, but no one told me how many and I didn't think to ask. The endo just kept saying he wasn't sick enough to be admitted. So we started our outpatient teaching and were at the hospital until 5:30pm that night. I remember the feeling leaving the hospital and it was the same feeling I had leaving the hospital when DS was a baby. They are trusting me to be totally responsible for him and not mess anything up???

We have all adjusted along the way, but DS has adjusted amazingly well. We are in awe of how he has handled himself and his diabetes and are so proud of him. Don't get me wrong, he still has his days of "I hate diabetes" but for the most part he has accepted it as part of his life. I joke he handles it better than I do.

So we didn't get admitted and actually were told to go home the first night and then to the hospital the next day. DS had his urine checked at the pediatrician's office (for another reason) 6 weeks prior to his diagnosis and it didn't show any glucose or ketones, so they really said we caught it early. His pediatrician called me a few days later and said "kudos" to me, because I was the one who caught it and they really were not concerned initially because of the urinalysis done 6 weeks before. So he said I was the reason we caught it so early. We were lucky knowing now what we do that we did catch it before he got really sick with it.

 

Mommy for life: 8 months in and I am still asking myself... is this for real!?! I think I will never accept the fact that my baby has D! I certainly don't denied her D care (as I matter of fact I constantly thrive for best D-care), but it still feels like I will wake up someday from this nightmare.

 

Ds was diagnosed one year ago at age 13. We took him to the ER on a Monday morning because he was lethargic and having trouble breathing. ER doc knew immediately what was wrong. A1C was like 14 and bg was 631 I think. We were transferred by ambulance to a larger hospital 2 hours away. Spent one day in PICU and then transferred to another room where we stayed until Thursday. Ds had a catheter for first day or two and IV's until just about the end. Met with CDE and nutritionist while we were there. A lot of it is a blur.

 

My sons AIC was 13.4 at dx, his BG at ICU was 1250. He was in ICU for a week, in DKA and he was unconscious by the time we got to the ER, and did not wake up for 3 days. They told us to prepare for the worst, and if he did wake up, he was at risk for brain damage. It was the most horrifying experience of my life.