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.