Duncan's Story

Tuesday September 15, 2015 we were enjoying our dinner outside in the nice weather. We live in the high desert of California, where the weather doesn't seem to get crazy until the end of September or the beginning of October. Most of the time we have a mild October where everyone is wearing shorts and tank tops, but Halloween night is always freezing cold. My parents and I are sitting out at the dining table outside when Duncan my 18 month old comes over to me and wants me to hold him. He's freezing cold, so I get a blanket and wrap him in it while my two other boys are running around playing whatever game they came up with. I put Duncan to bed early because he didn't seem like he was feeling well.

About an hour later I put my other two boys to bed. Cyrus, my seven year old came out about ten minutes later, and to tell the truth I was a little frazzled because I mainly thought he was getting up to ask for one more this or one more that. Nope, he comes out and says "Mom, Duncan threw up." Oh great, that's why he didn't eat much at dinner and why he wanted me to hold him in a blanket, he's sick. I cleaned him up, gave him a warm bath to help him relax, changed his sheets, and put him back to bed. 
The next day was spent cleaning up throw up, changing him multiple times out of jammies and dealing with a flu bug. He wouldn't eat anything, so I just made sure he was getting the sugars back in his system, and wasn't getting too dehydrated. Thursday was the same, he was just sick.

My poor little boy just didn't feel well. I had decided that if he wasn't better by Thursday night I would call his doctor on Friday morning and see if there was anything they could do. His breathing was rapid, but he had also suffered from RSV at the age of 6 weeks and had to be hospitalized for 4 days at St. Mary's. September is the beginning of RSV season, so he very well could have the beginning of it and I didn't want to take the chance. I took my older boys to school and had breakfast with a friend who told me I should call Thursday morning instead of waiting. "It's a minimum day today", she said, "and if you wait and call tomorrow, you may not get an appointment until Monday and he could be over it by then.  Then you have wasted a trip. But if you call today, you could get him in this afternoon after the minimum day, or at least get him in tomorrow.  If it were me, I just wouldn't take the chance." I had to agree with her, and because of her advice I will forever be grateful to her for convincing me to call my pediatrician. I got home and I called. 

I had a conversation with the nurse who told me it did sound like a flu bug. She told me there was nothing they could do about it, and it probably wouldn't be a good idea to bring him in because by sitting in the waiting room he could catch something and make it worse. He didn't have a temperature which is one of the reasons why I was going to wait until Friday to call. The nurse told me to keep doing what I was doing, keep giving him juice to keep the sugars in his system, and make sure he's not getting dehydrated. I put the phone by his nose and mouth so she could hear his breathing, and she told me that he's not wheezing so I shouldn't worry too much about RSV. "If he becomes unresponsive", she said, "bring him in as soon as possible." So that's what I did, I checked on him every hour got him up for meals that he didn't eat, and made sure to change his diaper and keep him hydrated.

At around 7:30 pm that night my husband came home from school.  He was in a nursing program. We ate dinner, and I realized I hadn't gotten Duncan up to eat, so I went in to wake him up. He groaned and kind of fluttered his eyes open. I ran him into my husband and said to him "Tell me not to worry! Please tell me not to worry!" My husband pulled out his stethoscope and listened to his lungs. He said his lungs are clear but his heart is racing. "First he needs a blessing, go get your dad." (We are LDS and when a member of our family or congregation get sick we give them a blessing for health). "Then he needs a doctor, we need to get him to the emergency room." My dad and I packed Duncan into my truck, I sat in the back to keep an eye on Duncan and make sure he stayed awake, and my dad rushed us to St. Mary's Medical Center.

We got to the emergency room, I got into line to check in and Duncan was a greenish grayish color. I got to the window and the man behind the glass looked up, saw my son and said, "Mam, your son needs to get back here NOW!" He started talking to nurses to get a bed ready and told me I needed to get him on a gurney. Six nurses came over and took him from me. Six nurses took my baby and started poking him with needles, tried to get blood and start an IV. I had a doctor came up and ask me what happened, so I started from the beginning, I started from Tuesday night when he was fine and running around, and out of nowhere started throwing up. I told him about calling the pediatrician that morning, and checking on him every hour. I told him that when I found him unresponsive I brought him in. "If you found him at around 7:30 why did it take you and hour to get him here?" "Well, I live 45 minutes away from the hospital", I responded.  There was a woman at the window when I got here and she took about 20-25 minutes to get her point across..." I did what I was supposed to do right? I understand this man probably sees a lot of awful things in the ER in the high desert, but I was a good mom right? Didn't I do what his doctor told me to do? Honestly all I could do was cry. I didn't get hysterical, I didn't scream, I asked the doctor, "Is my son going to be alright?" "I don't know" was all he could tell me, "Your son is in critical condition, you should have gotten him here sooner." I told my story to 6 different people that night, and wondered every time what I had been missing, what could I have done differently? It was the flu! Just a flu bug... Right? 

After what seemed like forever which was probably only about 30 minutes to 45 minutes with my dad texting me from the waiting room every 20 minutes to see if there was and update, the ER doctor came back. "Ok" he said "your son is in what we call DKA or Diabetic Ketoacidosis.  Your son has type one diabetes." "No he doesn't" I laughed a little, seriously I laughed a little bit. "He can't be diabetic, my husband and I eat right, my husband is 6'5 and weighs 216 pounds, I don't keep junk food in the house, and we grow a lot of our vegetables...." the doctor looked at me and said "your son is diabetic. It's type one, his eating habits have nothing to do with it." "But it doesn't run in our family", I added.  "It doesn't have to run in the family anymore. Your son's blood sugar was over 600.  He's in DKA and we don't have the equipment to help him, so I've put in a call to Loma Linda Children's Hospital. They are sending a helicopter and should be here within 45 minutes. They are sending a crew of six so you will not be able to fly down with him. I'm going to be over at the desk if you need anything, just let one of the nurses know and I will be right over to talk to you". "But why was his sugar so high? Could it be because he hasn't eaten anything in four days, and I've just been giving him juice to make sure the sugars are staying in his system?" "No your son is diabetic. I will be over there if you need anything."

About 45 minutes later a nurse came over to me and told me the crew from Loma Linda was here to air lift Duncan down to their hospital. The ER doctor came in with her and said to me, "The crew from Loma Linda just landed, there is a couple things I want to remind you about. You can not go with them on the helicopter, but the most important thing is your son is going to be fine. You did everything right. You called his doctor, and you did everything they told you to do. This is not your fault. No on knows why this happens it just does. You are a good mother and you did everything right. If you had not been checking on your son every hour, and brought him in to us tonight, he would not have woken up tomorrow morning. You are a good mom. Remember that. Good luck and I hope everything works out for you." The crew came in, introduced themselves, and eased my mind the best they could. They promised me he could take his stuffed dog with him to comfort him, and that they would strap it in so he didn't lose it. They gave me the instructions for when I get down to the hospital and where to go. They took one more blood test, and Duncan's sugar had dropped to the 400's and told me they would be down at the hospital in 20 minutes.  It was an hour drive for me. I kissed my baby goodbye, and watched them strap him into a bed and take him away. They promised me my boy would be safe and I could go right in and see him as soon as I got down to Loma Linda.

 My dad drove me down to Loma Linda where Duncan and I spent the next three days in the hospital. There was a nurse in the room with us at all times to check his insulin and his blood sugar every hour. Friday morning came and the nurse told me I would be meeting with the insulin instructor for about two hours. She would be going over how to administer his insulin once we got home. I met with a woman named Barbara who also had diabetes but hers is type 2. She stayed with me for two hours answering my questions, and making sure I was comfortable dealing with checking his blood sugar myself. By Friday night his blood sugar was at 180, he could be taken off the insulin pump and start eating solid food. Saturday morning I ordered Duncan his breakfast, and got to meet another awesome woman who was a nutritionist. She went over foods and carbohydrates and how to count out his carbs. She gave me some referencing material to help me out. The nurses told me it was very uncommon for a child Duncan's age to be diagnosed with diabetes, type one or type two. The only way they can catch it is if he goes into DKA.

The nurses told me I was the calmest parent they ever worked with when it came to the news of his diagnosis. I thought back and told them, "I'm pregnant, and last week my husband came home from school, and I had told him that I had just finished watching an episode of CSI where they were saying on the T.V. show that excessive thirst is a symptom of diabetes. Duncan had been getting me up every night for about a week and a half for water. He'd drink about two 6 ounce cups of water and go back to sleep. I was also changing his diaper every hour because he had been peeing so much. My husband said so? and I said "isn't that a sign of diabetes?" and my husband said "it's your pregnancy hormones babe, it's hot outside, and he's just thirsty. You're probably just overreacting." so I took it as that and walked away." The nurses thought it was funny and said, "Mother's instincts are amazing."

Sunday came and a doctor came into the room and told us Duncan could go home. His blood levels were great and I seemed to be handling everything well. They were confident enough to send him home for me to take care of. I called my dad and let him know the good news, but it would take him about two hours to get down to us. He was in church and the traffic was awful. The I-15 was under construction, and everyone was coming home from Vegas.

We left the hospital around 7:00 pm, and got home around 8:00 pm. I was nervous to get started, and our first night home was a little rough. I was still checking on him every hour, and he woke up at 2:00 am and cried for an hour and a half straight. This was my life now. I had jumped in with both eyes open. I started teaching my husband everything I learned, and made sure family members knew about his condition. We sat our older boys down together and explained what was going on with Duncan now and they became very protective over what he ate and that everyone knew his health.

So started our life with diabetes.