Sunday, October 24, 2010

looong weekend.

mommy and daddy have had a bit of a long weekend. it began on friday morning, when z cried & cried before going to school. he continued to be clingy & weepy at school, so we left after 30 min. we went to a play ground at the rec center, but z wasn't interested in it, so we went home to see daddy before his phone meeting started. z fell asleep early before his nap, and woke up early with a fever, so the morning made more sense. i thought it might have been due to his flu shot on thursday, but the fever continued through the night (long night for mommy), so it was something separate. we've spent most of the weekend watching videos - lots of monsters, inc, bob the builder, etc.
this morning, when i took over from j, z's breath smelled overwhelmingly of nail polish remover (acetone). i was really scared, because i know this can be a sign of high blood sugar in diabetics. i've never smelled this before on z's breath, so after a couple of hours hashing it through in my mind, i called the pediatrician's after hours line & spoke with a nurse. she advised going to the emergency room immediately to get it checked out. we did take the time to get showered & dressed decently, but went to the e.r. at st. vincent's. they took us to the pediatric area right away, which was very kind of them. very little waiting to be seen. they did a toe prick, and his blood sugar was 145. they attached some sort of plastic baggie to catch urine, and then waited for a pediatric nurse to come take a real blood draw. with the help of two other nurses, with z's upper body wrapped up in a blanket, the super nurse made a successful draw the first time from his right ankle. quite the opposite of the Evil Lead Testing Draws of July 2009. i made it very clear before they started that my precious child is chubby, and has very small veins, and i would not tolerate lots of sticking. we did have to wait awhile for the results of the urine & 2nd blood test, and those came back more favorably. so, for the moment, the breath smell was most likely due to his not eating much throughout this feverish weekend. they do want me to follow up with his pediatrician, either with a glucose tolerance test, or some sort of blood test that can show the past month's history of blood sugars. for now, i'm incredibly relieved. i know how difficult the life of a juvenile diabetic can be (and often how short). i hope my son doesn't have to go through that.
so, long morning. mommy spent the afternoon judging a competition, and daddy went climbing in the evening. time for bed now!!!! (let's hope it's an uneventful night.)

and now, for some cute pics...
fun in the e.r. i can climb on this thing.

i can push it around.

isn't my outfit cute? (those gowns were super soft, by the way. kids have it so good!)

darn it, mommy, stop taking pictures of me from behind!


how is this thing put together, anyway? can i take it apart?

1 comment:

Chris said...

Yikes, sounds like a stressful weekend. Z looks like he was a trooper at the hospital. A couple of my friends growing up had juvenile diabetes and aside from testing their blood sugar and having a restricted diet, they had perfectly normal childhoods. Here's hoping it's NOT that, though! Please keep us updated when you know more. Hugs to Z and you guys!