Ketones and IV Fluids, Part 1 (part 2 to come later this afternoon/evening)

Since I am in the process of catching up on some blogging, I decided it would be good to document our most recent trip to the ER/hospital for The Superhero.

On October 29, 2009 The Superhero woke up from his nap with a fever, 101.5 (or around there).

I assumed it was similar to the one The Princess had had a few days prior. She had the fever one afternoon and it was gone and she was back to normal by the next morning.

He was definitely acting sick. He spent the afternoon lying on the couch. He did eat his snack, but then refused to eat any dinner. His blood sugar was ok at that time, so we let him skip dinner.

He fell asleep on the couch around 6:00pm. We tested his BG and he was starting to drop, somewhere around 100 at that time. We did a temp basal decrease on his pump for a couple of hours to get his BG up to a more comfortable sleeping number.

Re-check a bit later and his BG was coming up some. We checked his ketones with the blood ketone meter and he had small ketones at that time. We figure this was due to the temp basal decrease and not eating dinner combo. He has barely had any insulin all afternoon/evening.

I went to bed and told my husband to check him in a bit and keep an eye on the ketones. Well, The Superhero woke up around 10:30 not feeling well. He stayed on the couch with Daddy for a bit. His blood sugar was at or below his range, so no insulin was given. Ketones were climbing up to the moderate-high range. My husband was not sure how high on the blood meter was too high, so he waited to wake me up.

Around 11:30pm I wake up to the sound of The Superhero throwing up all over the living room floor. I find out that his ketones were now in the large category and his BG was in range. He was not keeping anything down. We kept trying to get him to drink ANYTHING we could find. He was not interested.

We called the endo on call, just to make sure we were doing everything we could/ should do. At that time, we were. Pushing fluids. He even ate a cracker or two. She said if he threw up again to bring him into the ER for an IV. We REALLY wanted to attempt to get through this at home on our own.

We continued to push fluids. We checked his BG and ketone levels A LOT! He continued to have ketones in the Very LARGE category. (I think they got as high as 1.5 at home).

He started to doze off on the couch again. Around 2:00am or so, he woke up and said he did not feel good. Then he threw up again.

That was it; we knew we had to take him in for fluids. I called my dad to see if he could go with The Superhero and my husband since I am still nursing and The Princess would be up anytime to eat.

Off to the ER they went!