I was excited to pick Andrew up on Friday morning. I got there early to be one of the first in line to pick him up. That was partly from eagerness & partly because he had a baseball game in the evening. We had to meet with the doctors/nurses first & go over BG numbers before getting our children. The lady who pulled out Andrew's chart explained that the doctor had decided Andrew's pump might be broken & had put him back on shots (What???). The doctor next to her leaned over & said, "Is this Andrew's Mom?" (Over 100 diabetic kids here, and you're looking for me. GREAT!). Apparently, Andrew's numbers had run high much of the week. They had changed Andrew's site again & again with no luck. When he was "High, over 600" the previous evening around 9 p.m., they discontinued the pump & gave him 8u Lantus, the 24 hour insulin. The doctor explained that I could try the pump again at the 24 hour mark. I explained that Andrew had only been off of Lantus since January & needed 11.5u then. 8u wasn't going to work, as his morning BG proved. The doctor explained that they weren't sure what dose to give & needed to be cautious. (You could have called me! I could have told you what dose he had been on!!!) I didn't say anything in the parentheses of this post. I replied, "I understand, but I need some advice. Andrew has to play in a tournament ball game tonight, and I don't want him to feel horrible. 8u Lantus isn't going to be enough. What do you recommend that I do to get through the day?" When I finally got to see Andrew, we reconnected his pump & ran it at 50% because of the Lantus.
Andrew's pump wasn't broken. Once he got home, everything returned to normal. Andrew is very competitive & his BG goes up when he competes. Most kids were going low because of activity, so Andrew was unusual. He did have one low while he was there - the lowest low he has ever had. I think he said it was in the 20s. He was fine, but he said his counselor carried him back to the cabin because they didn't want him to exercise at all, not even to walk. Andrew liked that.
Have you since talked to other parents to find out if this has happened to others? Of all places you would think the medical staff at the camp would know the right amounts
ReplyDeleteNone of the other kids I've ever talked to had this problem. I wish the doctor had called me. Maybe he didn't because it was already 9 pm the night before I was to pick him up. I don't blame him for not knowing what amount to give. Every body is different & they say that this is one disease where the patient will often come to know more about their own body than the doctor. The doctor matched the Lantus dose to his total daily basal dose of Novolog through the pump, which was the only medically sound thing to do without knowledge of prior Lantus dosage.
ReplyDeleteSo Andrew is unique? I guess when he goes to camp again, you'll leave them with detailed notes now that you know so much?
ReplyDeleteI don't know what we will do next time. We will have been on the pump so long by then, that I don't know how much Lantus he would need either. I will definitely tell them what happened last time & recommend that they try an increased basal if he has lots of highs rather than abandon the pump. I will probably worry more the next time than the first! I assumed no news was good news!
ReplyDeleteAndrew surprised me when he filled out his part of the survey they sent after camp. When asked if he would return next year, he said, "No, I want to go to family camp." They have weekend camps that the whole family can go to. We may try that & avoid the issue all together. The rest of the kids would like that. I don't think Andrew will learn as much from the other diabetics because he tends to stick with his siblings when we go to family events. We will just have to pray from year to year to see what we do.
It's hard to be away from family for a week at that age. I can see how it was good for him to learn to manage his diabetes from other kids but he's done that now so I can see why you may not send him unless he asks about it.
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