To Hell and Back

Last week we went out to Utah to visit some family and see Dave and my Dad and Jason (my brother in law) run the St. George marathon. We went out a week early to be able to enjoy some time with family while Dave had to go up to Salt Lake City for a conference. He was then going to meet us in St. George on Friday and then run the marathon the following day. Well, that was the plan. Here's what really happened:

Friday, Sept. 26 - I fly out to Utah and go to my sister's house in Spanish Fork. Dave starts driving out west with the kids. What??? I know I'm spoiled. My husband let me fly ALL BY MYSELF while he drove 1200 miles with FOUR KIDS. His company car only seats 5 and since we are a family of 6, and he drew the short stick (and since I have the most awesome husband EVER), I got to fly.

Saturday, Sept. 27 - Dave meets us in Spanish Fork. My Dad and Mom are up there too, but my Dad has to go back to St. George for a church meeting the next day so he takes Sophie with him so she can have some Grandpa time. The rest of us stay in Spanish Fork with my sister. We plan to meet them down there Monday night before Dave has to go up to Salt Lake for his meeting.

Sunday, Sept. 28 - My Dad calls to tell me Sophie hasn't been feeling well and has been vomiting. We think it's probably the flu and that she just needs rest and fluids.

Monday, Sept. 29 - Sophie is still not keeping anything down. We all get down to St. George and she looks terrible. I try to make her some soup to eat, she vomits. She tries to drink water, and vomits. Since it's too late to take her to a clinic we contemplate whether or not to go to the emergency room and decide to try to wait 'till morning.

Tuesday, Sept. 30 (2:00am) - Sophie cannot take it anymore and she can't sleep and I can't sleep and my parents can't sleep for worry, so we take her to the emergency room. Her vitals are taken and she only weighs 66 pounds. She is severely dehydrated so they get her on an IV right away and after asking some questions check her blood sugar level. It's too high for their monitor to read so they have to take it to the lab for further analysis. They come back and tell us that her blood sugar level is over 1000 (Normal blood sugar range is between 80-120 and thankfully not until much later did I learn that you can go into a coma after 700). They tell us they are ill equipped to handle her situation because of the complications she could potentially have (seizures, coma, ?).

7:30 am - Sophie is life-flighted up to Primary Children's Medical Center up in Salt Lake City in a small private plane (I know you're probably thinking helicopter).

10:00am - I think it was around 10am, a lot of it is kind of a blurr -Dave meets us up at the hospital and we are thrown into the whirlwind of learning that our child has type I diabetes and all that comes with that.

She was quite unresponsive when she got to the hospital. That might have been from the Valium given several hours earlier because of her agitation (She was quite delusional and kept trying to pull out her IVs), so they were afraid she might have edema in her brain. Thankfully a CAT scan came back negative.

Over the next couple of days her blood sugar was brought within a normal range and we were taught and taught and taught some more about this disease and how to live with it.

Thursday, Oct. 2 - Sophie was released from the hospital and we headed back down to St. George to be with everybody again. She also had gained back 8 pounds and was starting to look like herself again.

Of course hindsight is always 20/20, but now that I know the signs for diabetes, Sophie pretty much had ALL of them:
*A couple of weeks previous to this, Dave and I had both noticed that she had started to look really thin. We dismissed it as a growth spurt.
*She had also not been sleeping well recently and had been waking up a lot to go to the bathroom.
*On the trip out here Dave noticed how she seemed really thirsty all the time and subsequently they had to make several potty stops.

Conclusion:
I know this sounds dramatic, but a few days ago, I had thoughts of having to bury my baby. She was soooo sick. Now she's happy and healthy. Sure she'll have to take insulin shots and check her blood sugar several times a day, but I'm so grateful for the miracle of modern medicine. This disease is manageable. This does not have to affect her life. She can live her life just the way she did before this disease, just now with a few more finger pokes and carb counting :) Thanks to everyone for their love and thoughts and prayers during this scary time. They were and continue to be felt. Thank you, Dad, for the priesthood blessing you gave Sophie. I know it helped. It's a miracle that with her blood sugar level as high as it was, that she didn't suffer any complications. Sophie, We love you!!!

P.S. The picture at the top is taken a day after all of this happened. This is AFTER she'd already gotten off of her IVs and gotten some color back and been re-hydrated.