ER

E.R.  Those two little letters suck.  Big time.

I had my very first trip to the emergency room this morning.  And it was scary.

I was already at the hospital for clinical.  It was our first day actually in the hospital so we were just doing some orientation and paperwork and that kind of stuff.  Then we shadowed a nurse for about a half hour and were going to meet back up to review the computer system and make sure all of our codes worked correctly.

It was during this half hour of shadowing that I crashed…kind of.  I was in a patient room with the nurse and all of the sudden I felt low.  I excused myself and checked my blood sugar.  143 mg/dL.  “Hmm.  That’s odd.  I feel low.”  I had one glucose tab because I figured that maybe I just had a quick drop and needed a little bit of sugar.  And even if I was wrong one glucose tab wasn’t going to send me into the blood sugar stratosphere.  So, I popped a grape glucose tab and was on my way.  I went back to the patient room and my classmate asked if I was OK.  I told her I was fine and ready to go.

But five minutes later I was feeling worse.  I’d started sweating and standing up seemed really, really difficult.  I grabbed my PDM and checked again, this time making sure to really clean off my finger just in case I’d had something on them the last time.  I checked and I was 166 mg/dL.  OK, something was up.  I knew I was low.  I know my low symptoms and I was experiencing them.  Hard core.

I was just sitting in a chair and crashing.  One of my classmates noticed that I wasn’t OK and asked me what was wrong.  I couldn’t answer her.  All I could say was, “Low.”  My instructor came over and was asking me questions that I couldn’t answer.  She had someone go and get me juice while she kept asking me questions.  I started to sip the juice but I felt so nauseous that I could hardly finish it.  I laid my head on the desk and tried to stay awake.

My instructor said I was as white as my scrub top and I was drenched in sweat.  My bangs were plastered to my forehead and I felt drops of sweat rolling down my neck and back.  I couldn’t form a sentence and my vision was flashing in and out.  I was truly fighting to just stay conscious.  I asked my instructor if I could just lay down and she wanted to know if I could make it to an empty patient room to lay there.  I knew I couldn’t walk so I said no and just slid out of my chair to lean against the wall underneath the desk.

That’s when she called and got a wheelchair for me and told me she was taking me to the ER whether I liked it or not.  She asked if I could check one last time before we went down there to see what my blood sugar was.  I could but I couldn’t stop shaking and she had to help me.  191 mg/dL.  That was when I started to cry.

I was so confused and embarrassed and there were 10 people standing around me all worried.  I was embarrassed beyond belief because this stuff never happens to me.

My instructor rolled me down to the ER and I was checked in.  I was finally starting to think and form sentences.  But it was hard.  They asked all kinds of questions which were difficult for me to answer because my brain was still lagging and the tears wouldn’t stop rolling down my cheeks.

They checked my blood sugar with a hospital meter and it was 166 mg/dL.  I was put in a room and the nurse came in and asked a ton of questions.  I was poked and prodded and hooked up to a couple of machines.  They rolled the EKG machine in and slapped those sensors on me.  They drew some blood.  The doctor came in and asked more questions and did a couple of things.  By this time I was feeling more ‘with it’ but everything was still slow.

Then I was left alone.  For over an hour.  With the door shut.  And no access to the call light.  The reason I was admitted to the ER was because of almost passing out from a “non-low” low blood sugar.  Something’s going on.  Maybe it’s just me, but if my patient was in the ER for something diabetes related I’d be checking on her frequently to make sure she wasn’t crashing again.  Or at least have the door open.  But, hey, that’s just me.

Over an hour later the nurse opened the door and my instructor was there to see how I was doing.  She gave me my book bag which had my cell phone in it and I called my mom right away.  I cried through the entire conversation.  I was scared.  I’ve never been to the ER before and I was there by myself.  At this time I’d just tweeted that I was in the ER so I had all of my awesome Twitter friends replying to make me feel less alone.

My mom called my aunt who lives in Omaha and she came to the hospital right away and held my hand for a while and just made me feel better.  It’s always good to have family there when you’re scared.  And my family is the best.  My aunt is amazing and I’m so thankful she came and kept me company for a while.

The doctor came back in and said that there was nothing wrong with me.  He didn’t know what happened.  But he recommended contacting my endocrinologist soon to see what she could tell me.

I was feeling fine by this time and was ready to be discharged.  My blood sugar when I left was 176 mg/dL.  My aunt took me out to lunch because she said I needed some ‘mothering’ and since my mom was almost two hours away she was going to take over.  I love her!

So, I’m still a little scared.  I felt low, low, low.  But two different meters said I was fine, fine, fine.  I don’t know what’s going on and that scares me.  I just hope this doesn’t happen again.  Because I know there’s a good chance I won’t be in a hospital if it does happen again.  I’m freaked out and my parents are worried too.  We don’t know what happened and that’s scary.  I’ve been on the phone with them all day.  I wish they lived in Omaha so I could just curl up on the couch between Mom and Dad and let them take care of the diabetes for a day like I did when I was little.

I hate the ER and I hate diabetes for sending me there.  Today was crappy, but tomorrow can only get better.  You’re not going to get the best of me, diabetes.