Diabetes Challenge: Day 2
I’m one of those rare diabetics who were too foolish, blind, or hopeless to go to the doctor within a sensible length of time. I’m told that to get diagnosed through DKA as bad as mine is uncommon. I’ve actually been told there’s no medical explanation I’m alive. I walked into the ER under my own power with an ABG of 6.38, and a blood glucose level of 32.4.
I first noticed the symptoms of diabetes when I was a week or so into a brutal accelerated calculus course. I was studying something like eight hours a day, and thought that symptoms like blurred vision, and fatigue were just me pushing myself too hard. Also, I drink a lot of water as a rule, since I once passed a kidney stone, so I didn’t even notice I was drinking more than usual, and just attributed the frequent urination to my drinking habits. *sigh* I always drank more than most people in my life anyway.
In any case, I finished my exam, and went to by grandparents house the next day to celebrate my nineteenth birthday. We indulged in lots of stuff that was particularly bad for me: milkshakes, cake, cookies, chocolate, chips, sprite, coke, and orange juice. As you can imagine, I felt terrible the next day. I assumed this was because I hadn’t seen the sun in about a month, so I decided to go swimming. On the way, I used my birthday money to buy myself an Orange Julius from Dairy Queen: Not good. I drank it all, and it was, naturally, the largest size, then took the bus to the pool. As I jumped into the water, I experienced extreme chest pain, and rapid breathing. I honestly assumed it was an asthma attack, since, for me, it can be stimulated by exercise and cold, and that water had been freezing. I was scared, but I really didn’t think it could be that bad.
After about an hour just lying down, I realised that I didn’t have the energy to even get up and walk to the bus stop, so I called my cousin to pick me up, and he took me home. He said I looked really bad, and maybe I should go to the ER. However, in all of my non-existent wisdom, I insisted I just needed to take my puffers, and it would be fine. I’d been hospitalized for asthma once when I was a kid, and this wasn’t nearly so bad. It was bad, but not that bad.
I changed my mind when I threw up all over my sheets as I headed to bed. I thought that was strange, because, to my knowledge, vomiting was not a typical symptom of asthma. I wasn’t thinking very clearly either way, as DKA tends to have that effect. I just put my sheets in the laundry, and drank a lot of juice, milk, and water, because I was so thirsty, and if I was sick, I needed to keep hydrated. Hindsight being 20/20 the milk, and especially the juice was a bad idea. I spent most of the night trying to focus, because I felt so tired. I remember thinking I could pass out from exhaustion. I still didn’t call an ambulance though; I thought it would get better, but it didn’t. Eventually, in the wee hours of the morning, with my laundry all done, and pulling an all-nighter, (I am so glad I didn’t go to sleep, because I doubt I would have woken up, and no one would have missed me for days with my parents out of the country, and my friends overseas; they would have just found my corpse probably a week later…), I called my grandparents, and asked them if they would mind driving me to the ER.
They drove me there, and all I remember is pain. My memory comes in flashes. I remember just focusing on the goal, on the next step of the mission. Walk to the elevator. Walk to the van. There’s a lot I don’t remember if it wasn’t to do with anything outside of my very deliberate and determined focus. I don’t remember, for instance, but I’ve been told my grandfather actually wiped saliva off my mouth, because it was hanging there in strands. I guess it was from the rapid breathing. Likewise, I didn’t notice, but my grandmother told me that when I walked my knees visibly shook trying to support my weight. Both of them told me I was pale as a sheet. All I remember though is pain, and forcing myself to stay awake, and push through it all. I could feel every individual muscle in my rib cage strain with each rapid, shallow breath, and I felt like a knife had been stabbed into my sternum. When we were in the elevator, I curled up into the fetal position, and when our floor came, I would force myself to stand right back up. My vision was blurring so much the memories now come in flashings of light and incoherent images.
When we got to the ER, I looked so bad they brought me up to the front of triage immediately, and I honestly didn’t have to wait at all. I still thought it might be asthma, so they put me on Ventolin, but I knew immediately that it wasn’t working. I remember trying to explain that it wasn’t working, that clearly this wasn’t an asthma attack, it was something else. I recall the process of communication felt so difficult, like talking to someone on the phone, but there’s a bad connection. You just can’t quite get the message across. You’re mixing things up, getting things wrong, and repeating yourself a lot. You wonder why they just can’t get it. Why don’t they understand you? There was significant frustration of simply trying to articulate what I meant when my thoughts were hard to string together, let alone my words. I think my speech was slurred. Eventually, I got the nurse to believe me that I wasn’t panicking, and they went to get the doctor who was at a complete loss. Maybe, it’s anxiety? No, I’m not an anxious person. Maybe you’re pregnant? Impossible, I’m a virgin. Maybe you’re…? So on, so forth. They gave me EKGs. They took X-Rays of my chest. All results came back, and lead to nowhere. Finally, another nurse noticed that I kept asking for more water, and she went up to doctor and said, “Maybe, she’s diabetic?” Then, everything clicked.
The doctor explained to me that the chest pain was coming from my heart struggling to pump my blood, because it was so thick with sugar. I remember almost seeing a light-bulb go off above her head, and almost hearing something click into place in mine. You see, my paternal grandmother, who passed from complications seven years before I was born, was Type I. Ironically enough, I was named after her, and I remember by father telling me a story that she had told him once: She’d said when she was about sixteen, she and her friends had gone out, and they’d all gotten milkshakes. She’d been so frustrated that she couldn’t eat and drink what she wanted, she drank the milkshake with them against her better judgement. She went into a coma, but she remembered waking up once, and feeling her heart strain to pump the viscous blood, and that was when she vowed to take better care of herself. I remember having that flashback, and going Oh! That’s me now!
After that, I was placed on a gurney, and rushed to ICU. I remember letting myself pass out, since I figured now that they knew what to do with me, I was entitled. The last thing I remember before the black was one nurse taking my blood sugar, and another trying to find an artery to get my ABG. The last thing I saw was the shocked look on their faces when they saw what the results were…
I was unconscious for about twenty hours during which they took my blood every four hours, but I remember waking up briefly in the wee hours of the next day, and being so hungry. I asked for something to eat, but the nurses looked shocked I was even up. They looked at one another skeptically before saying that I could eat if I could hold down some juice. I tried, but I threw it up immediately. I remember saying, “I’m willing to try again,” but they told me no. The gravity of the moment settled on me, when one of the nurses said, “Your blood is poison, honey, you can’t keep anything down right now.” I nodded blearily, and passed out again.
I woke up the next morning strung up on 6-8 IVs. This is not an exaggeration. I had four needles in me: Two at my wrists, and two in the crooks of my elbow, and they had double outlets. Hence, 6-8 IVs. My forearms were just massive bruises. I was attached to the IVs for two days, with some gradually getting removed as I got better, until they were all gone: some were insulin, some were electrolytes, some were saline solution. The magnesium was particularly bad. It burned as it went in, and all the nurses could give me for it was an ice pack. (Also, thank you to all the nurses out there. The ones who were assigned to me were all just so kind, and I can’t thank you enough for all you do to take care of us. It’s really very humbling, and I quite appreciated it.)
I slept for most of the first two days I was in ICU, and the first day is mostly just blur. I do recall needing to use the bedpan, and how it registered to me that I wasn’t remotely embarrassed about someone else being there to help me use the bathroom. I just felt so helpless, and exhausted I didn’t even care I needed help with basic bodily functions. I realized then I must really be bad off if I just didn’t care. I was so tired, sooooo tired…
The nurse came to explain that I was diabetic, and I just took it all in. She didn’t have to explain much, because I already knew a lot about it a) because I took an advanced biology course, and b) because it was in the family. I remember feeling like there was a certain inevitability to it. My grandmother had it. Now I have it. I was named after her. It just seemed so poetic. All the nurses said they were impressed that I was taking it so well. I didn’t know what to make of that statement. In many ways, it wasn’t real. I was diabetic now, and that was it. Shrug your shoulders. How was I supposed to take it? I had my diagnosis, and that was it. I didn’t understand why they thought I was doing so well. Was there a way that I was expected to take it…? Was I supposed to pitch a fit? Freak out? Have a tantrum? I said thank you, when they told me I was taking it well, but I honestly didn’t understand where they were coming from. I felt lost, but I did what I was told, and was as good a patient as I could be.
It started to become more real when I was discharged. I went home and I was still quite insulin resistant, and weak, but they needed the bed at the hospital, and I was able enough to manage, so I went. They gave me needle tips, insulin pens, test strips, and lancets, a massive sharps container, and told me to expect the nurse to call. Looking at the size of the sharps container was when my head knowledge began to become my heart knowledge. It was huge, and I realized that was because this was the rest of my life. That container was going to be filled with needles, and loads more would be filled besides. It started to feel more real, and it didn’t stop. It continued as I called the nurse with my numbers when she asked me to, when I started planning meals, when I started taking care of my blood sugar all by myself, when I started rearranging the rhythms of my life, but it was still so strange, and so much to remember. I staved a lot of how I felt off, and looking back, I think a lot of it was just me dissociating, because I needed to take care of myself, and be strong. Everything else could wait.
I finally broke down three days or so after I got out of the hospital. My mom, who had been out of the country, came back as soon as she heard the news, and as we were driving home from the airport, I finally felt safe enough to cry. Now, it was real. I cried, and I cried, because this was the rest of my life. I cried because I felt trapped. I cried because a whole future I had planned out where I took being healthy for granted just died. I cried because I was scared. I told my mom, “I feel like I’ve got a bomb strapped to me and any day it might go off.” I cried because I’d almost died. I cried because I knew that if I ever stopped taking care of myself, I was dead. I cried because eventually no matter how well I took care of myself, there would be complications. I cried because my grandfather told me I was released on the anniversary of my grandmother’s death. It was just too much. I cried. I just cried.
