Second day at Children's

Thursday, April 23

Busy day with lots of people to meet with. They told us that we can go home tonight as long as we get all of our classes done and her numbers continue to improve.

Last night Josh and I learned how to do the sugar testing and how to give shots. It was easier to watch the nurses give the shots than for us to give them, but we had to start at some point because we couldn't take a nurse home with us!

For some reason, Ellee's sugar was up at breakfast and lunch. We watched for keytones and luckily they were negative. Shortly after lunch, they decided to keep her for one more night to try to get her levels down. That was so disappointed because we just wanted to get out of there, but at the same time, going home was just as scary.

One of the student nurses offered to take Ellee down to the playroom so that Josh and I could go get something to eat. When we got back, El and Maddy were practicing giving shots (minus the needles) to a couple of bears that we had. It was the cutest thing ever! Maddy was nice enough to get a couple of those hospital bracelets and write the bear's name on it! Ellee was so proud of herself for giving the bear a shot that she was showing everyone how to do it!

Later on, Maddy took Ellee and another little girl (3 years old) out to the rooftop playground. We are up on the 6th floor and can see this from our room. She had been begging to get out there and play and it was heartbreaking to tell her no we've had too many people to meet with. El really needed this fun break and it was nice to meet some one her age going through the same thing.

When El and I got back from the playground, they told us that we could still go home tonight as long as we got all of our classes done. It was a mad rush to get everyone in there that we needed to see still, but we managed to do it! It was a mad dash with Beth going over the rest of the "classes" that we had to go through and test on. It felt like we walked into an advanced French class and had to cram for a test without knowing a bit of the basics of the language. When Dr. Steve said that we'd be overwhelmed with classes and info, he wasn't joking - that is exactly how we felt! I completely forgot about calling Mom to tell her the good news that we'd be coming home tonight, and the next thing we know - here they are! Oops... That was a long way for them to drive, just for us to go home, but it was so nice to have them there with us!

Winnie came in to go over our meter with us and spoke with Mom and Dad about having them come down for classes. Karen also stopped in to go over some stuff with us and we spoke about her dosage. Before we were able to walk out the door, they had already dropped her dosage down a half a unit. It may not sound like much, but any sign that we have it under control or that she's entering her "honeymoon" period is a victory!

Walking out of that hospital with our daughter was a great feeling! I know that some people who enter that hospital don't get to leave with their child. I know it's a grim way of looking at things, after seeing what some of the other kids in there are going through, it made the shots a little more tolerable. If having to do 4 shots a day is the price we have to pay to be able to take her home, then that small sacrifice! The girls rode with Grandma and Grandpa, and I wanted to stop at Tuttle Mall to pick up one of those Carb Bibles and look for ID jewerly.

At Tuttle, I went to the Things Remembered and looked for a bracelet to get engraved for her to wear. It was a little disappointing to find out that most of their stuff was too big. I did manage to find a cute one that was on sale that was slightly smaller and didn't fall off when she dropped her hand. Little did I know that this would be the first of many disappointments with trying to find ID jewerly for her to wear!

We go to leave the mall, the girls are in the truck with us and we're getting ready to leave when Ellee says some thing so small, but yet it throws Josh and I into a panic... "I'm Hungry". UUURRRGGGEEE... where are the nurses when you need them?! What do we do? It's almost 9pm and there isn't very much open and we know that he have to give her something that is 15 carbs or less. Mom suggests the apples from McDonalds, so I pull out my new Carb Bible and look them up. Great! The apples are less than 15, but she loves the "apple sauce" and that would put her up to 23 carbs. We didn't really have a choice, so we went ahead and got them for her. It sounds weird and sounds like something so trivial, but for newly diagnosed parents, this was a hard decision, what do we do? Since I am writing this a while late, I will say that looking back, I can't believe that we paniced about that! Now at night we purposely give her extra carbs to raise her level up to avoid a night time low!