First Day at Childrens Hospital

Wednesday, April 22

We have SOOOO much to learn over the next few days. We have really didn't know how long we would be there because we didn't know how long these classes would take or how long it would take to get Ellee's levels straightened out. We met Beth, the lady who will be our day nurse for the next two days. She gave us the run down on the disease, what likely caused it and the course of action we would be taking. She also gave us a brief rundown on how to order food for Ellee. They had a neat little menu with a good assortment of food and the carbs listed behind it. For now, we had an allotment of 30-45 grams of carbs that she can eat per meal. For breakfast, that was a little hard to stick with because she loves pancakes, but for other meals, it was hard to get up to that 30.

I don't know how to explain that day other than Josh and I felt like we were stuck in slow motion and every thing around us was in fast forward. There was so much information to learn but for some reason we couldn't get past the first sentence - "your daughter has diabetes". Have you ever had to read a book for school and after you "read" the first page, the only thing that your remember and comprehend is the first line? It's like the book Tale of Two Cities, all I remember is the first line - "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times".

Ellee was pretty groggy for the first part of the day. I dreaded the time when she would say that she was hungry. We had to try to get her to tell us what she wanted to eat and make sure that we had the right amount of carbs, order it, then wait about 45 minutes for it to get to the room. Then the horror show begins. By the time the food gets there, she is starving and cranky. But before she can eat, we have to poke her finger and get blood. If the meter reads above a certain number, then they have to try to fill up this little tube with blood to send down to the lab to verify the level. Next is the worse part - the shot. It would would take both of us and some times another nurse to hold and try to calm her down while Beth gave her the shot. Now she can eat, and I would pray that she would like the food because if she didn't eat it, then we'd have to substitute food that she would eat to make sure she had ingested the right amount of carbs for the insulin dose that they gave.

Shortly after lunch, Ellee started to feel better. She was smiling and was more playful & goofy. We were finally getting our Elizabeth back! That afternoon, we were so thrilled when Beth said that they would unhook the IV, but they were going to leave "the straw" in just in case they wanted one more blood draw. Figures, about the time Ellee got use to maneuvering the stand and cords when she had to go to the bathroom, they unhooked her! Okay, time for my rant... why wouldn't they put children size furniture in a CHILDREN'S hospital??? The toilet was just a tad too high for her and with the straw in her arm, she couldn't lift herself up so one of us had to go with her every time. Then the sink was just a tad too high and it made it difficult to wash her hands. Okay, I'm done!

The day was filled with meeting lots of new people . I think at one point all 5 of the people that we were suppose to meet with were in there to decide what time they would come back and go over their spiel with us. Not to mention the countless nurses who were doing their clinical that would come in and ask if they could check her stats. It was one of those things where when we were alone, no one wanted to see us, but when we had a visitor, everyone came to visit! When Wynola was talking with us, we had umpteen nurses, plus all of the Endos stop in while doing their rounds!

I remember the dietitian talking with us. Questions about her eating habits, how to calculate carbs, how much at each meal. Very over whelming. That was another moment when we felt like we were in a fog. Things were making sense, but they weren't really sinking in.

Mom had found the greatest things ever invented! Twistable Crayons!!! It doesn't sound like much to get excited over, but for a child that pushes really hard when they write and constantly break crayons... these things are wonderful! They hardly broke, and if they did, then we just lost a little bit of it. Can anything get better than that? YES... Fat Twistable Crayons!!! Mom's goody pack that she sent up with us was great! It kept Ellee busy for most of the day till we were able to go find the playroom in early evening after all the educators left for the day.

I have to say that I'm so thankful that Dad decided to take the retirement option from the State when he did. I don't know what we would have done through all of this if he wasn't able to watch Danica for us. It also helped that Mom was working the M-F day shift position that she's in now. Not having to worry about Dani so that we could concentrate made things go a lot smoother. After Mom got off of work that day, they brought Dani up to the hospital to visit.

While they were there, they told us to go some where and get some thing to eat. We went to Pizzaria Uno. We talked a little bit, but we mostly sat there holding hands and crying. We can get through this, but the next month is going to be VERY rough.

Sure enough, they wanted one more blood draw. For some reason, Ellee didn't want them to take the straw out when they were done. I think she just got use to it being in there, so it took some coaxing to get her to let them take it out. It probably hurt more to get all the tape off from the split that kept her elbow extended than it did to take the straw out!

We all three had a rough day. Josh went to sleep on the couch and El and I got a Winnie the Pooh movie out of the closet in the hall way to watch. At that point we haven't really explained to her what all was going on. She just knew that she had this IV in her arm and that she had got pokes and shots quite a bit that day. I was laying in bed with her watching the movie and we started talking. "Hunny, I know that you don't understand what is going on, but you have some thing in your body that isn't working like it should so we have to give you these shots to make up for it." "Oh, okay... Why doesn't it work?" "I wish we knew. We have to get use to these shots so because the medicine will make you feel better." "Okay. I love you mommy. Good night." "I love you too baby. Get some sleep."

I think every parent watches over their newborn baby as they sleep. That baby is the a wonderful gift that you've been given and have to figure out how to take care of it. They admire that cute little bundle that is so peaceful while sleeping, yet worry about what if something goes wrong. I laid there watching her sleep while while brushing her hair off of her face. Exactly 4 years ago we were in a hospital with her starting a new journey in our life. Here we are today, in a hospital again, on the same journey, but we had to take a slight detour.

Arrival at Childrens Hospital - Columbus

Tuesday, April 21

Talk about a long drive, so I was so glad when she finally fell asleep half way there! When we first started out, she couldn't really see out the back window very well because she was so low, but for some reason was trying to pick out sites that she recognized to see where we were. We were right down the road from one place I knew she'd know, so I pointed out her friend Savannah's house. We read a George book, then about the time we picked up 33 around Huntsville, she fell asleep. I chatted with the EMT for the rest of the trip. We talked about how you don't know how strong you are until you are faced with a challenge, you do what you have to do.

I was very impressed when we got to the hospital. When they wheeled us in, the gal knew exactly who we were and where we were going. Those wheels on the stretcher never stopped once from the door till we got to our room! On the way through the hall a male nurse or intern gave Ellee a beanie baby! Once we got up to our room, we got El settled into her new bed and the nurse checked her stats and sugar so that she could go back to sleep. After she went back to sleep, the nurse briefly explained what all will happen. We had 5 people that we had to meet with and 5 "classes" that we had to take. she wrote every thing up on the dry erase board with a line to x them off as we did them.

Josh got to there shortly after we did. I was exhausted so I laid down on the couch to get some sleep. I remember a nurse coming in to check her sugar in the middle of the night and Josh was up helping her. After that he couldn't get back to sleep in the chair, so we switched places.

First Hospital - Lima Memorial

Tuesday, April 21

I hate to say it, but I'm glad that I missed the insertion of the IV.  In 6 months I've had to sit with her twice through blood draws she freaks out around those "straws".  In October, after a blood draw to check for lead, she talked about how that needle "bit her" for a month! 

I got to the room just in time for her first finger poke and blood glucose check.  668.  I was upset that it was that high. This is where the self blame comes in.  Why did we let it get this high?  Why didn't we bring her in earlier?  Why didn't we recognize the signs earlier?  Dr. Steve kept telling us not to worry about her numbers.  He also put things in perspective pretty well... even if we had caught it earlier, we'd still end up in the same place.  He was very right.  And as I found out later on after talking with other people, her diagnosis number was quite low, compaired to what some others were when they were diagnosed.  Some were around 800, and some one else I talked to was up around 1,200.  The important thing is that we caught it before she went into a coma. 

Ellee got her first dose of insulin.   I think it took two nurses and both of us to hold her down to get it done.  Poor kid, she has no idea why she's in there, why she has an IV, or why they are poking her fingers or giving her a shot.  It took quite a few minutes to calm her down and I can't blame her, she has evey right to be upset.  They brought her up dinner, but she just picked at it.  She had a rough afternoon and just wasn't all that hungry.

They arranged for the ambulance to transport us to Columbus at 8:30.  The nurses change shifts at 8 and it gave them time to come around and do vitals before we left.  I don't think it was more than an hour and a half after I called mom and they were up there at the hospital.  They brought at goody bag for Ellee - coloring books and crayons, and plenty of George the Monkey books to read!  Josh left to get Dani from Tonya's house, then went down to Wapak to talk to his dad and brother before going home to pack clothes and head down to Columbus.

We had a few hours to kill and spent most of it over in the playroom that was right next door.  It was a pretty somber mood in there until Dr. Steve came in to cheer things up! I think there were a few points where he had me laughing through my tears! 

The EMT came a little early, but in a way I was glad to head out and get to Childrens to get this process started.  

Second Doctors Appointment

Tuesday, April 21

After her draw, we went up stairs to the doctor's office. We waited in the waiting room briefly, then they took us back to one of the larger rooms to wait for the results of the blood test. We were hoping to meet with Dr. Steve but it was mentioned earlier that he is on call for the night and didn't get in till 4. A nurse came in and took Ellee's stats and left.

We were both on pins and needles waiting for a doctor to come in. We had no idea what all this would entail or what would happen next. Poor Ellee was so tired that she curled up on Josh's lap and fell asleep against his chest.

After a while, Dr. Mary came in to see us. "Elizabeth is Type 1 Diabetic and right now her glucose levels are sky high. You need to decide what hospital and Endocrynologist you want to use so that she can be admited as soon as possible." Those are some of the hardest words a parent can ever hear. An Endo-what??? Dr. Mary was very wonderful with explaining our options. The bad news is that the only Endo in town mainly deals with adults, not children. Now we have to decide what Children's Hospital we want to go to. Josh laid Ellee on the examining table since she was still sleeping. They brought in maps to the closest Childrens along with where their satelite offices were and left us to decide what we want to do. Josh got on the phone to call work to find out which Endos were in our network and the whole time I'm still trying to figure out how to pronounce it!

Dr. Steve came in to check on us. I think he was filled in ahead of time on Ellee's condition since he'd have to deal with us tonight. He explained that we needed to admit her as soon as possible to get her hooked up to an IV to get all of that excess sugar flushed out of her system. We all agreed that it would be best to admit her to Lima Memorial to get every thing started, then have her transfered to Childrens in Columbus after they verified that they had a bed ready for her. Knowing how much an abulance ride costs after my two rides last year, I wasn't excited about seeing that bill, but at this point, it was the least of our worries!

Josh and I had to decide who was going to stay at the hospital with her, what to do with Dani, and what seemed like a thousand other things that needed dealt with to get us through the week. Luckily, my boss assured me not to worry about work and that they would get every thing taken care of for how ever long I needed to be gone. We decided that I would stay with her at the hospital and he would get Dani and pack clothes for us. I wanted to go to the library to get books and read up on all of this over the next few days, so he went with them to admit her to LMH while I was gone.

This was definitly the hardest phone call I ever had to make. On the way to the library, I called mom. "Is dad there too?" "No, he's up at Jason's." Oh, I was hoping to have them put me on speaker phone so that I could explain it to both. "Sit down... Ellee has Type 1 Diabetes and needs to be admitted to the hospital". We both bawled through that conversation. I don't really remember the rest of it except for asking if they could take Dani while we were in Columbus.

Why are there so few books on this subject? And as I soon found out, so many books lump Type 1 and Type 2 together, when they are almost opposite. One book that I picked up that ended up being the best one was a book "How to Parent a Child with Diabetes" by Gloria (don't remember the last name). I ended up getting all the techinical information I could handle (plus more) from the nurses in Columbus, but this book was from a mother's view. Armed with 5 books, I headed back to the hospital to start this new path of our lives.