I suppose I should post this for posterity....
...or something like it.
So, on Tuesday (11/27) at 10pm, the vomiting started. I've had food poisoning before, I've had a stomach bug before, and they both suck.
This was, unfortunately, neither of those things.
Every half-hour, I was up and running to the bathroom. After a few hours, "running" isn't really the word. "Walking a familiar path rapidly" would cover it much better. It was getting to the point that I was gulping water as quickly as I could just so I could have something to throw up, or I'd get the dry heaves. I hate the dry heaves. I actually found myself begging with my own stomach at some points, trying to convince it that I was done, man, that I had nothing else to give, that I was done. My stomach, as it turns out, is a jerk.
Around 6:30am on Wednesday (11/28), Jess told me to check my blood sugar. I couldn't immediately because a) hello, vomiting profusely, and b) my testing kit was in the car. So she goes out to get it, and the battery is almost dead. Like...one test left in it. I swear, it was like in one of those really bad movies, where all you need is a small flame, and the trusty hero looks in his trusty pocket, and finds a trusty matchbook with only one single solitary match left.
So she manages to get a finger stick going, and my blood sugar read 500+. For the uninitiated, normal is 75-125. I tell her that sounds a touch high, and could we try another test? She finds my backup meter, and is asking me how to work it, as if I can think beyond my ripped esophagus at this point. She figures out how to get the other one working, and it tests the same. So, the next step is to have me test my ketones. Basically, you pee on a stick and wait a bit (30-60s) to see what color it turns up; the darker it is, the worse your ketones. Mine went to deep purple immediately. This was, as Jess correctly guessed, a sure sign of diabetic ketoacidosis, or DKA.
So the next words I heard were "get some clothes on, we're going to the hospital". I don't know how to explain it, but there was no WAY I could do a car trip to the hospital in that state. My body just wouldn't have made it. So I tell her, "Fuck that, call 911". Even in distress, I am eloquent as ever.
10-15 minutes later, I have a bunch of strangers in my home, poking, prodding, and strapping me down. Yes, yes, I know, it sounds like fun, but I assure you, it wasn't. See, now that I'm not drinking to keep myself vomiting (sounds weird when you type it out), my mouth was dry. Now, I don't mean "Hmmm...I could use a drink" dry, I mean, take the worst hangover you've ever had, and multiply it by 10. I swear to god, I'm not exaggerating here - I wish I were. All the vomiting had drained my body of any kind of moisture, even to the point of having no saliva. And, anyone who's had a hangover knows the headache that comes along with it. Yeah, multiply that too. It was insane, and this is coming from someone who has lived with headaches and migraines all his life.
So we're driving down the road, and I'm begging for a drink. Anything, just a sip of water, just something to have in my mouth to alleviate the dryness. Nothing. The best they can do for me is hook up a saline drip. Mind you, they also have to ask me question after question after question: "What's your name? What's your birthdate? Where do you live? How old are you? What's your name?" and so on. Apparently, they do this to a) make sure that you're coherent and able to speak, and b) that you've got your story straight, and you're not trying to....I don't know, lie or something. The only problem was, I couldn't talk. My mouth was so dry, I could barely form words, and when I could, they were little more than a croak. Fun stuff.
So I get to the hospital, IV in arm, saline going in. More doctors, more nurses, more questions, more begging for something to drink. The only thing there wasn't more of was liquids for me. They would NOT give me anything to drink. I think they wanted to get me stable before they gave me anything. It was that, or maybe it was the time I said "An emesis basin would be a *really* good idea right about now," and they barely managed to get me one in time. I finally convinced them to give me some ice chips, which helped. They helped infinitely more when Jess doused them and the inside of the cup with water from the tap. Over and over and over again. Yes, I know doctors are smart, and YES I know I'm not smarter than them or anything but screw THAT - I needed fluids. Didn't help much except for the time it was actually in my mouth; once I swallowed, my mouth was dry again.
After a bit of time, I got moved up to the ICU (never been there, go me!) where I had a room to myself. More questions, more questions, more....damned....questions. I continue complaining about the state of my head, and they decide that I'm stable enough to do some pain management. They whip out the morphine to inject into the IV. I love my nurse. I wait about 30 minutes with no change. I love her significantly less now. I mention that it's just not working, and if they had any Imitrex, it might help. I'm a migraine sufferer and I know what works on my head pains. They decide to try Compazine first, a drug that has never, ever worked for me. At this point, the lovin' is gone, but they're doctors and nurses, and they have all the sharp things and good drugs, so I say very little. After that doesn't work, they move on to dilaudid. Sweet jesus, if you've ever had morphine or any kind of strong opiate before, this stuff is what morphine takes when it has a headache.
For the next...12 hours? I think? I was in and out of consciousness, and when I was awake, I wasn't really...there. I couldn't use my legs properly, couldn't lift my head without dizziness, couldn't do much more than roll over. Which was good, because that's how I had to pee: rolled over, into a portable urinal. They wanted to tell the difference between what went in and what went out. There's a Douglas Adams joke in there about it being vitally important to get a receipt whenever you use the lavatory, but I'm not clever enough to make it.
Anyway, once the drug wore off, I had another IV in my left arm, and several blood draws from the right. Honestly, the rest of Wednesday went by like a blur. Jess was there part of the time, but she had appointments to go to that couldn't be rescheduled (OB, VA, and others needed for the birth of our *next* child). Sid was being looked after by his grandmother Julie, who was an immense help in this time. Sometime during the afternoon, I got moved out of the ICU, and into a recovery room, which is a good sign, so I'm told. I ask if I can stop peeing in a plastic jug, as the novelty has sorta worn off. They say that no, I can't, because they want to see how much of the 15 liters they've put into my via IV is being retained. It only hits me later that they just told me I've had 4 gallons of saline shoved up my arms, and that's not even counting the potassium and magnesium they've been giving me to balance out my electrolytes.
Holy. Christ.
4 gallons! It turns out I ended up "retaining" roughly 2 gallons. I mean, I needed it as a result of the profuse vomiting and DKA, but still. Damn. That night, I watched an episode of Survivor, and coincidence or causative factor, my migraine came back. Nothing they gave me worked, so eventually, I just went to sleep. I told the nurses to wake me up every 30-60 minutes to test my blood sugar, which made for shitty sleep, but allowed me to leave the next day, as I was told that if I could keep my numbers good, I could leave. The only issues with my blood sugars was earlier in the day when they gave me lunch, but still hadn't told me to reattach my insulin pump. Left hand, meet right hand, talk, get back to me.
The upside from all of this is it's been a hell of a reality check. I know how bad it can be now, and I don't even think this was as bad as it gets. I could have lapsed into a coma if the vomiting had gone on a little bit longer. I've discovered that I am a huge fan of dilaudid. No, really. It's good stuff. And I got to meet my new endo and got a lead on a good GP/internal medicine doc. And...I smell fruity. No jokes, dammit - it's a side effect of DKA. It's weird.
I'll update this if I remember any other details that I've forgotten. Oh, and here's a few images of my arms (I'm puffy still from all the fluids):
So, on Tuesday (11/27) at 10pm, the vomiting started. I've had food poisoning before, I've had a stomach bug before, and they both suck.
This was, unfortunately, neither of those things.
Every half-hour, I was up and running to the bathroom. After a few hours, "running" isn't really the word. "Walking a familiar path rapidly" would cover it much better. It was getting to the point that I was gulping water as quickly as I could just so I could have something to throw up, or I'd get the dry heaves. I hate the dry heaves. I actually found myself begging with my own stomach at some points, trying to convince it that I was done, man, that I had nothing else to give, that I was done. My stomach, as it turns out, is a jerk.
Around 6:30am on Wednesday (11/28), Jess told me to check my blood sugar. I couldn't immediately because a) hello, vomiting profusely, and b) my testing kit was in the car. So she goes out to get it, and the battery is almost dead. Like...one test left in it. I swear, it was like in one of those really bad movies, where all you need is a small flame, and the trusty hero looks in his trusty pocket, and finds a trusty matchbook with only one single solitary match left.
So she manages to get a finger stick going, and my blood sugar read 500+. For the uninitiated, normal is 75-125. I tell her that sounds a touch high, and could we try another test? She finds my backup meter, and is asking me how to work it, as if I can think beyond my ripped esophagus at this point. She figures out how to get the other one working, and it tests the same. So, the next step is to have me test my ketones. Basically, you pee on a stick and wait a bit (30-60s) to see what color it turns up; the darker it is, the worse your ketones. Mine went to deep purple immediately. This was, as Jess correctly guessed, a sure sign of diabetic ketoacidosis, or DKA.
So the next words I heard were "get some clothes on, we're going to the hospital". I don't know how to explain it, but there was no WAY I could do a car trip to the hospital in that state. My body just wouldn't have made it. So I tell her, "Fuck that, call 911". Even in distress, I am eloquent as ever.
10-15 minutes later, I have a bunch of strangers in my home, poking, prodding, and strapping me down. Yes, yes, I know, it sounds like fun, but I assure you, it wasn't. See, now that I'm not drinking to keep myself vomiting (sounds weird when you type it out), my mouth was dry. Now, I don't mean "Hmmm...I could use a drink" dry, I mean, take the worst hangover you've ever had, and multiply it by 10. I swear to god, I'm not exaggerating here - I wish I were. All the vomiting had drained my body of any kind of moisture, even to the point of having no saliva. And, anyone who's had a hangover knows the headache that comes along with it. Yeah, multiply that too. It was insane, and this is coming from someone who has lived with headaches and migraines all his life.
So we're driving down the road, and I'm begging for a drink. Anything, just a sip of water, just something to have in my mouth to alleviate the dryness. Nothing. The best they can do for me is hook up a saline drip. Mind you, they also have to ask me question after question after question: "What's your name? What's your birthdate? Where do you live? How old are you? What's your name?" and so on. Apparently, they do this to a) make sure that you're coherent and able to speak, and b) that you've got your story straight, and you're not trying to....I don't know, lie or something. The only problem was, I couldn't talk. My mouth was so dry, I could barely form words, and when I could, they were little more than a croak. Fun stuff.
So I get to the hospital, IV in arm, saline going in. More doctors, more nurses, more questions, more begging for something to drink. The only thing there wasn't more of was liquids for me. They would NOT give me anything to drink. I think they wanted to get me stable before they gave me anything. It was that, or maybe it was the time I said "An emesis basin would be a *really* good idea right about now," and they barely managed to get me one in time. I finally convinced them to give me some ice chips, which helped. They helped infinitely more when Jess doused them and the inside of the cup with water from the tap. Over and over and over again. Yes, I know doctors are smart, and YES I know I'm not smarter than them or anything but screw THAT - I needed fluids. Didn't help much except for the time it was actually in my mouth; once I swallowed, my mouth was dry again.
After a bit of time, I got moved up to the ICU (never been there, go me!) where I had a room to myself. More questions, more questions, more....damned....questions. I continue complaining about the state of my head, and they decide that I'm stable enough to do some pain management. They whip out the morphine to inject into the IV. I love my nurse. I wait about 30 minutes with no change. I love her significantly less now. I mention that it's just not working, and if they had any Imitrex, it might help. I'm a migraine sufferer and I know what works on my head pains. They decide to try Compazine first, a drug that has never, ever worked for me. At this point, the lovin' is gone, but they're doctors and nurses, and they have all the sharp things and good drugs, so I say very little. After that doesn't work, they move on to dilaudid. Sweet jesus, if you've ever had morphine or any kind of strong opiate before, this stuff is what morphine takes when it has a headache.
For the next...12 hours? I think? I was in and out of consciousness, and when I was awake, I wasn't really...there. I couldn't use my legs properly, couldn't lift my head without dizziness, couldn't do much more than roll over. Which was good, because that's how I had to pee: rolled over, into a portable urinal. They wanted to tell the difference between what went in and what went out. There's a Douglas Adams joke in there about it being vitally important to get a receipt whenever you use the lavatory, but I'm not clever enough to make it.
Anyway, once the drug wore off, I had another IV in my left arm, and several blood draws from the right. Honestly, the rest of Wednesday went by like a blur. Jess was there part of the time, but she had appointments to go to that couldn't be rescheduled (OB, VA, and others needed for the birth of our *next* child). Sid was being looked after by his grandmother Julie, who was an immense help in this time. Sometime during the afternoon, I got moved out of the ICU, and into a recovery room, which is a good sign, so I'm told. I ask if I can stop peeing in a plastic jug, as the novelty has sorta worn off. They say that no, I can't, because they want to see how much of the 15 liters they've put into my via IV is being retained. It only hits me later that they just told me I've had 4 gallons of saline shoved up my arms, and that's not even counting the potassium and magnesium they've been giving me to balance out my electrolytes.
Holy. Christ.
4 gallons! It turns out I ended up "retaining" roughly 2 gallons. I mean, I needed it as a result of the profuse vomiting and DKA, but still. Damn. That night, I watched an episode of Survivor, and coincidence or causative factor, my migraine came back. Nothing they gave me worked, so eventually, I just went to sleep. I told the nurses to wake me up every 30-60 minutes to test my blood sugar, which made for shitty sleep, but allowed me to leave the next day, as I was told that if I could keep my numbers good, I could leave. The only issues with my blood sugars was earlier in the day when they gave me lunch, but still hadn't told me to reattach my insulin pump. Left hand, meet right hand, talk, get back to me.
The upside from all of this is it's been a hell of a reality check. I know how bad it can be now, and I don't even think this was as bad as it gets. I could have lapsed into a coma if the vomiting had gone on a little bit longer. I've discovered that I am a huge fan of dilaudid. No, really. It's good stuff. And I got to meet my new endo and got a lead on a good GP/internal medicine doc. And...I smell fruity. No jokes, dammit - it's a side effect of DKA. It's weird.
I'll update this if I remember any other details that I've forgotten. Oh, and here's a few images of my arms (I'm puffy still from all the fluids):