One more for February

I am afraid that I will again have to ask for you to bear with me as I blog about a personal journey for our family.  I hope that we can help somebody on their journey as we so desperately seek for help on ours. 

The last day of our holiday weekend was spent with an ever increasing concern for Archer, our oldest.  We noticed that he was spending more time in the bathroom than with us.  His poor little hands were raw from all of the washing and drying.  We also remembered that earlier in the week Archer complained that he couldn't see. 

Blurry vision and frequent urination = diabetes? 

Let's go to the doctor.  The doctor sends us to the lab for a blood draw.  The doctor calls a few hours later and directs us to the ER.  Holy Crap! (yes capital C)  I was making dinner, the Rebel game was on, we had a plan for the evening, she couldn't really mean it.  It is amazing how much the world can go silent but the worries in your head can scream.  I do believe that somehow I was able to convey the message to Archer that we had to get to the hospital without too much of a scare.  Seriously though, who isn't scared when they are told, "go to the ER"?

I always tell my children they can't get sick or hurt when Uncle Jason isn't working.  This happened to be a time when Uncle Jason wasn't even on the mainland.  To hell with his 12 days already spent in Hawaii, we were scared and he could comfort us.  Uncle Jay talked Archer through what would happen when we got to the hospital and things went just as he said.  We checked-in on Wednesday night about 7 and by Friday we were more than ready to blow that pop-stand!

It was quite a journey progressing from the pediatric ER to the pediatric ICU.  In the throws of all the whirlwind of processing my child is in the ER and it is scary and I don't know how to do this and how do we make this the best for him, we passed a room that said "Chemo Precautions" and there were gowns and gloves and masks.  Right then and there I thanked God that we were just dealing with diabetes.

We were told that our stay could range from 2 to 4 days.  YIKES!!!  What could possibly take so long?  No sugar, take a shot, game on.  No, no, no.  Take all these handouts, read them, be quizzed, show the nurses what you can do, brush up on your calorie cholesterol  carb counting and do the math.  Wake up to frequent blood sugar checks, sleep on a teeny tiny cot with your husband, go without sleep because you just couldn't possibly, and eating is not something to be bothered with.  And with this, we adopted a new catch phrase, "we got this!" 

Prick your finger, use the monitor, we got this!!  Fill the syringe, inject the insulin, we got this!  Count the carbs, eat all the carbs, we got this!  It's time to fly on your own, we got this?!

It is easier with every passing day.  The scary part has been not knowing how Archer's body will react to everything and with how much intensity.  Sending him to school was a scary proposition (actually thought about home schooling for a short, very short flash) but when I remembered he will be surrounded by people for 6 hours and have a nurse in the building, I took a breath and let go.  I can still freak out when I think about a week long scout camp this summer but that is a long was off and here at only a week out I can say,

WE SO GOT THIS!!