Wednesday, December 17, 2008

What can you trust??

Last weekend Jared avoided an ER visit, and I hesitantly say, it was only beacause of our last ER visit that I had some Anti-nausea meds to help us beat the ketones at home... reason... Failed Pod.

Jareds average for the week was 145... and we did a pod change, (we love our pod!) .. but now has a mild trust issue with... He was 140, went to bed.. at midnite went up a bit to 230, which while sleeping and growing and every other unknown variable... was not too abnormal.. bolused him and went to bed... 3 am his sister woke and started asking for breakfast.. now to put this into prospective, aside from the fact that we were out of town visiting family and it was only our first night there, everything but this had been normal.. she was sharing a bed with Jared, and just kind of kept herself up, fussing and convincing us we needed to wake.. Jared heard the rukus, woke and said he had a tummy ache... we are sleepers and all this seemed 'not quite right' a quick bathroom trip and a bg check and we are at 372... hummm... ketone test to quickly follow.. and after a pee.. this is not easy to force ;)

Large off the chart ketones.. how the heck did this happen... must be the pod, i quickly double the amount of insulin the pod has suggested, and don't wait too much longer.. of course called our childrens hospital hotline.. but get this.. (and we love them there too - ) I asked specifically for the on call Endo DR.. and got 3 nurses before they all suggested we call a dr on call.. well the call from the dr was taking way too long... I was in Canada, and gave them my number there... and no call... (after we got home 3 days later, we heard 3 messages from the dr trying to reach us) way to read the reports with the current number!

It was time for mama instinct.. and this meant using the coveted Zofran (anti nausea for Chemotherapy patient) med to be dissolved.. he had not thrown up, but was so naseaus he could not even open his eyes.. (I was hoping this was because it was not even 4:30am and we were all way too tired.. but this was not the case...) he took it, and it takes 20 minutes to work 12.5 minutes later.. the vomitting started :( we thought we lost that valuable little pill :( but after only 4 sessions of vomitting... it stops.. he starts to feel better...

the Dr calls, was thankful we had the meds that the ER would have given us .. which was where she was going to direct us... (but seriously questioned how i got this med in my hands) and suggested we really change the pod, not knowing if that was the cause...

we change the pod, and do some serious injections as well to boost his changes of beating this.. after all there were cousins to play with and grandparents to hang with ;)

12 hours later,... by late afternoon, we were in the clear... NO ketones.. woah! that gave me a huge sigh of relief...

and a wake up call...
1. always be prepared with ALL types of meds that our children may need while we are away
2. don't let your kid convince you out of putting on thier CGM if they have one (because of guilt)
3.Really try and avoid changing a pump or pod right before bed... we hear it, we try not to, but really... avoidance can prevent this day from happening middle of the night, and hopefully catch when numbers are usually more stable.

So when I call Omnipod to tell them about the pod failure, they ask for it back.. I am cool with that... they even ask if they can call back to check how my son is doing...

I mentioned to her that I was calm and friendly because this was not her fault.. but this is a BIG deal and they need to look into the pod failures.. 2 in one month - NOT OKAY!! these are people, in this case a child wearing this... Double, triple check and pad the pods more if you have to in shipping.. because no matter how nice was was on the outside, I was pissed and sad on the inside.

it is over and I am getting ready to pack for another 2 weeks in canada... and wel put it this way.. the medical supplies are going into their own suitcase.. with tons of back up!