I really don’t want to sound like Negative Nancy. After all, it’s the Christmas Holidays, we should be embracing our time together. School is over, Christmas Beetles chirp loudly at night, we can stay outside until at least 8pm-it’s such a relief to watch the sunset, and feel a cool breeze wash over us. Kids walk past our house and exclaim, “Merry Christmas, Lance’s Mum!!” It’s just a wonderful time of the year.
However, where Diabetes is concerned, Numb November always blends into Dreaded December.
At this time of year, we suffer from blistering humidity. It becomes so overwhelming that you feel like you could almost suffocate. We have had 90% humidity in the air for about 10 days now, along with the Queensland sun burning its little heart out. Lance’s Diabetes and summer have never been able to meet an agreement where they can give each other a break. We have had 3 out of six Christmases in the emergency ward..it’s SUCH a blessed relief when Summer turns into Autumn.
Last week, Lance woke up, visably hypo. He couldn’t sit up, and his words were slurring together as if he had been sipping vodka all night. I rushed for a handful of jellybabies, and began to speak loudly and in a sing-song-y voice to keep his attention. His eyelids were flickering, and each time I would call his name, he would jump a little, and smile at me. I managed to get him to have 4 jellybabies. He started drinking juice. I didn’t even bother with a blood test, because I knew I didn’t have time.
I lay beside Lance, and began rubbing his hair. He didn’t seem overly distressed, probably because he wasn’t really “with” me. Then the twitches came.
The leg jerks.
The tightening of his fingers and toes.
A metre long strand of drool oozed from his mouth.
(I have dealt with Lance and seizures before..but I really wasn’t prepared for this one…)
I felt like I was trapped in quicksand. I couldn’t move my feet to grab the phone or the glucagon. I actually had to talk myself through what to do out loud.
First and foremost, I put him in the recovery position, and checked that he didn’t have a jellybaby hiding in his mouth. All clear.
A multi-coloured stain began to bleed onto the sheets from his drool. As I assembled a glucagon kit, I told him how much I loved him, and that I would always make it okay. and that would be all over soon.
I guess, as a result of the whole peripheral neuropathy diagnosis, I am very vulnerable at the moment. My face was awash with tears as I planted a syringe full of mixed up glucagon into his thigh.
I then kissed his clammy head again, and began to sing softly to him.
I was barely able to dial Lance’s father, Scott. When he picked up, I croaked down the receiver,”I need you! I need you now! We have a seizure situation here! Please come as quickly as you can!!”
Scott arrived approximated seven minutes later. Lance was sitting up, and falling backwards on the bed. His tenancity to fight the hypo was so difficult to watch, this one had full control of him, and there was nothing he could do to beat it.
I managed to get another glass of sweet drink into Lance-his bsl was 3.6mmol/L!!! I shudder to think what it was prior to the seizure….
I called my doctor, and his receptionist said to bring him in immediately. As soon as Lance began to speak in sentences again, the first thing he was able to communicate to me was “Mum, I think I may vomit soon..”
I raced through the house for a bucket, and returned, to find Lance’s beautiful strawberries-and-cream complexion had turned into a whiter shade of pale, with a tinge of green.
He was very unsteady on his feet, and was determined that he would not be going to the doctor unless he was wearing only his underwear.
“Just a singlet and satin boxer shoers, honey…that’s all.”
“No, it’s too heavy on my skin. I will have to go like this or I won’t go at all.
I looked at Scott and sighed.
“Okay sweetie, whatever makes you happy, I just need Doctor Congo to have a look at you.”
“Why? I don’t feel sick!!” An I going to the doctor??
“Um, you had a very bad hypo about half an hour ago my darling. “
“Did I? Can you carry me mum, and turn the lights all off? My head is really hurting.”
Scott rushed out to the car, and I carried my son like a newborn baby and let him lay down on the back seat. I sat with him, and strapped him in as best I could. I told Scott to take the back roads and go as slow as legally possible.
We all made it to the doctor’s.Lance began to scream when the rays from the sun hit his face.
“MY HEAD!!! MY HEAD HURTS 111 out of 10!!!”
We were immediately ushered into a waiting room, so that inquisitive eyes couldn’t witness his post hypo stupor.
We waited for about five minutes, Lance begging me, pleading with me to go home. He just wanted to go home to bed.
I heard the doctor’s door swing open, and his loud, booming voice bidding a patient farewell. I told Lance that Dr Congo would be with us any moment. He stared straight ahead. I instantly knew what was about to happen.
I grabbed about 30 tissues.
I thought I had done very well, in catching Lance’s post-hypo vomit. That’s until a huge cylindrical explosion sprayed up my arms, in my hair, and up the walls and dripped down on the sofa.
Lance sat heaving, half crying, his eyes rolling back in his head. A nurse came rushing in and handed him a sick bag, (the type they give you on aeroplanes.) He clutched onto it for dear life, inhaling deeply and exhaling with all his might.
The doctor called us into his room. He didn’t even blink twice, considering that his private waiting room looked like a set from “The Exorcist.”
I began to tell him what had happened. I requested a Panadol suppository for the headache, and a Maxolon injection for the vomiting/nausea. I wasn’t going to allow Lance to suffer any longer than he had to.
By this stage, he was really going to town with the cries of “MY HEAD FEELS LIKE IT’S GOING TO EXPLODE!!! GET ME OUT OF HERE!!!!!!’
The doctor swiftly jabbed him with a shot of Maxolon, and before Lance had time to complain, he had a dose of Panadol in his mouth. Doctor was sure that the Maxolon would work well enough without traumatising him even more by giving him a suppository.
His BSL upon leaving was 6.1mmol/L. Dr Congo’s large fingers ran through Lance’s hair.
“I really don’t like seeing you like this, Lance! Do you promise you will go home and try and sleep for me? You will wake up feeling much, much better.”
Lance’s lip quivered, and he tearfully nodded.
I tearfully thanked Dr Congo profusely, and hurried Lance back into the car, wanting to get him home as soon as possible.
On the way home, a little voice from the back seat said:
“Mum..can we stop off at Woolworths and get some green grapes and watermelon?”
Without that shot of Maxolon, it would usually have been a good 12 hours before Lance actually requested food. I was happy that I suggested an IM injection, rather than try to get him to injest a tablet or syrup. The maxolon had no choice but to work if it was already in his bloodstream.
We arrived home, and I cleaned Lance up. He still had the most hideous headache. I put him into my bed, and lay down beside him. BSL:8.4mmol/L.
An hour later, I woke up, to discover the aftermath of the hypo. I tiptoed around and cleaned up, so that when he woke up, he wouldn’t be unpleasantly reminded of the goings on earlier that morning.
We have at least one of these hypos EVERY YEAR, as a result of the vicious humidity that goes hand in hand with our summers. I have to ensure that Lance has a sports drink with him at all times, as his blood sugar dances around 4-5 mmol/L no matter how many snacks I give, how hydrated I keep him, or even under-bolus on the odd occasion.I thought that this year would be different, considering that we have the pump. I have gone through all of his basal results and set them according to his recent bsl results. More hard work and constant monitoring, but watching a sugar-starved brain related seizure is something that I would be quite happy to never witness again.
I have said this before-the only joy that came out of this morning of terror is that Lance remembers VERY little.
Without Air Conditioning, I would have to spend all day and night at the cimema with him to escape the savage Queensland heat.
The whole episode was all over the next day-after a solid sleep, Lance woke without a headache, and a voracious appetite. He had lost a day-he had no recollection of the events the day before.
Santa, if I can have ONE wish…
Please let Lance get through the summer without another severe hypo/seizure.
That’s all I want for Christmas.
Why did the insulin die in my pancreas? 