An Experience I could have lived without
6/19/2021
I have thought about how to write this post over and over again. Started it over and over again. No matter how I start I keep coming up short on portraying the experience I had.
This isn’t a post that will have my normal snark in it. It’s not a bright and fun experience. My attempts to make it more light hearted or riddled with quips and other such thing don’t really help it out.
I was already not feeling good. Having issues keeping food down. The first couple days was water and crackers. As nauseous as I was, those two things still seemed to stay down. The third night was the worst. Water didn’t stay down. I tried powerade zero for electrolytes and that came up. Crackers did nothing. When I didn’t have anymore water come up, bile replaced it.
My body felt overheated and I couldn’t cool down. I checked my temperature and I didn’t have a fever. After a few more trips to vomit, I noticed the room starting to spin. Keeping upright was more of a challenge. Sometime around 5 am I woke my husband up to help me to the shower. I was hoping to take a cold shower.
Anyone in southern Arizona in the summer knows that getting any kind of cold water is a joke. The outside temperatures are too high and the few moments of cold water you can get are short lived and followed by warm or even sometimes hot water. A trick someone told me was to turn your hot water off in the summer. This way you can get colder or cooler water from the tank. We hadn’t done this.
After waking my husband up and having him help me to the shower; we turned the water on and was greeted by…. Warm water. I immediately got annoyed and frustrated as I was already feeling so warm. He walked me back to bed and we both laid back down. I had another trip or two to vomit and at some point my husband asked if we needed to go to urgent care.
I knew I was impaired. I could barely navigate to the bathroom. I left this decision up to him. If it was me, I’d have laid back down and tried to tough it out. He had other plans. He grabbed some clothes and had me put them on. After grabbing some other necessities he loaded me into the truck. I don’t recall what time it was. I just new it was early. Work hadn’t started yet.
When we opened the door to go outside I was blinded. I couldn’t see anything but bright white and the light hurt. After cringing and shutting the door, I was handed some sunglasses that barely helped and ushered out the door. The heat of Arizona’s summer making me even more uncomfortable.
My breathing had become more forced and rapid. Almost a huffing pant. I could feel my husbands annoyance with other drivers as he tried to get me to urgent care as quickly as possible. Once we arrived; I remember being unloaded. My husband fumbling with the seat belt to get me out of the truck and then sitting in the waiting room. After a few moments I was being taken in back to be assessed.
At this point time became a fight for me. What was a minute felt more like an hour. I recall sitting in a bright room. I recall my husband telling me not to lay on the nice cold floor because they would send an ambulance. I even recall ignoring him and enjoying how cold the floor was. Refreshing and a beautiful reprieve from the heat I kept feeling.
The doctors wanted a urine sample and they had my husband help me collect it. I remember demanding a wheel chair because I couldn’t walk anymore.
Urgent care provided some zofran to help with the nausea. My blood sugar was too high for the meter to read.
They told my husband I was in Diabetic Keto Acidosis and that I needed to be taken to the Emergency Room immediately. They provided the nearest hospital and my husband loaded me back into the truck.
The next thing i remember is sitting in the emergency room waiting room. My eyes closed for much of this adventure due to how bright everything was. All I kept thinking about was cooling off and getting water. My mouth was as dry as the Atacama desert.
My husband said he want up and yelled at the ER nurse to get me help. He was provided the standard ‘ as soon as we can sir’.
I was taken back to be assessed and they wouldn’t allow my husband to come with. At some point they called him back because I wasn’t coherent. The answers I was providing didn’t make sense or couldn’t be understood.
I’m told after a few moments of the assessment I was taken back and provided a room and a flurry of nurses. Time continued to fail me as a nurse would come in and promise water and leave. What felt like hours of waiting no water I tried yelling ‘hello’ to get attention. [I’m told I wasn’t very loud when I thought I was yelling] My husband hushed me several times and reassured me it had literally been 1 minutes since they had left.
I remember:
- getting injections of zofran.
- getting lemon wet swabs that were horrible.
- getting ice water and sponges to suck on.
- getting things stuck to me and some kind of imaging done without having to leave the bed I was on.
- food being brought and not having an appetite.
- my chin shaking uncontrollably even though I wasn’t cold
All the while my breathing continues to pant and I still feel hot. I remember my seeking out more and more water like an addict seeking their next fix.
[my husband said I kept telling the heart monitor alarms to shut up. I was tachycardic and kept setting the alarms off with a heart rate over 135. At some point the nurses changed the threshold to stop the alarms]
The doctors told my husband that my blood sugar was 753. That I was in DKA. They said my breathing was called Kussmaul respirations. Starts as rapid, shallow breathing (sigh breathing) that, as the acidosis grows more severe, becomes slower, deeper, and labored (air hunger).
After a while I was taken to ICU. My husband was sent to the waiting room while I was prepped for a stay in an ICU room. There I remember being bathed with wipes and put in a gown. Connected to monitors and several IVs and cables. A urine sample was requested and I conceded to a catheter because I didn’t have the energy to make it to the toilet that was less than 5 feet away. I remember a nurse telling me I had acid in my blood. To which I only recall mimicking what she said ‘acid in my blood?’ .. and trailing off.
The next 24 hours were in and out of sleep as the doctors came in and out testing my blood sugar and checking my fluids and electrolytes. I was on an iv drip of insulin to get my blood sugars down. By 3pm the following day my blood sugar was down to the 300’s. I was more awake but still quite tired. I could see the incremental improvements. Being awake for longer periods but not being able to focus. Checking my phone and seeing messages but not caring. Finally reading the messages and then of course replying to them.
I hadn’t fully understood the dilemma I had been in. How deadly the condition I was in until a few days after being released from the hospital. I took the time to read more up on DKA and what it means.
I’m thankful to be alive. I’m thankful my husband was there to make the decision to bring me to a care facility. Had he not, I may not be here today.
I was in the hospital for a total of 3 days. When I got home I slept for another 24 hours. My body felt bruised. I was happy to be home. The photo below (right) is after being in the hospital for 24 hours. Every time someone came in the room I was told how much better I looked. I think I am glad I don”t have pictures of before I received IV fluids and insulin.
Another bloggers post hits very close to home. A recommended read as she outlines the experience far better than I think I can. While not identical in the setting or everything that happened, the experience as a whole and lost time is very similar.
https://www.medtronicdiabetes.com/loop-blog/the-scary-experience-of-diabetic-ketoacidosis/
Yet another blogger has a great post about it.
https://www.healthline.com/diabetesmine/landing-in-hospital-diabetic-ketoacidosis#1