Okay it has been a long time

So you will have to pardon me as I have had a hell of a class schedule and lets not forget about my oh so lovely line of work! So classes are good just trying to stay a float with those work and my 2 1/2 yr old who seems to have the amount of energy ems personnel only dream of. Everyone in the house is sick right now even the lil one but wait I have somehow been skipped over (finally my flu shot paid off). As summer works it way here it seems the amount of ridiculous calls have increased 4 fold. I mean this week alone I have worked three bike wrecks with NO helmet (I mean come on people they sell them for a reason), 6 drunk kids/teenagers, 3 cardiac, 2 overdoses, and 2 diabetic calls. I swear when I decided to be a medic I had this preconceived view of working real emergencies and helping people who really needed it. Man was I so off. Don't get me wrong I still work the occasional real emergency but it seems that most of those have been replaced by lack of control on a patients part. I mean honestly it is common sense most of the time, don't drink past your limit or take your meds as prescribed. But it seems the general public fails to practice common sense. I don't mind working the calls I mean it is the job I have chosen but I feel that sometimes I am taken away from working real emergencies for working things I thought should have been avoided by even a 5 yr old. I know one thing for sure, as long as people con't to do what they do we ems'ers will always have a job, and that is one thing I can not complain about.

Here we go again.......

Yes, it is that time again when all of us little college students scurry off to find ourselves. I am taking the new yr and this new school yr to really kick my butt into taking better care of my diabetes in general. I have a great A1C but sorry my friends A1C's can be deceiving in fact my 6.0 is beyond deceiving. See I have highs but I also get low lows that cancel out those highs and thus equal out to a great A1C. Now I am planing on really testing when I am suppose to and wear my CGM all the time but not use it as a crutch to avoid testing. I am one blessed college kid I have the best diabetes gear and top notch doctors but I have taken it all for granted. I have the supplies needed including Pinky (my Pump/CGM combo), my meter, and endless other things to keep me alive and going strong, I just don't use them all like I should. I have not tested like I should instead I would rely on my CGM for my results which BTW never do! I have went without my CGM leaving me open for lows I didn't even know I had. I also skipped 2 endo appts because I had school and didn't feel like I had any room in my schedule for them (I found out later that those 2 appts might have saved me a week of hospitalization). I have decided to test the 8 times a day in fact I set up the alarms on my pump to remind me, I also decided to ensure I have my CGM on me all the time. I am going to always ensure I have a snack on me and water and am going to ensure I double check my supplies before I leave to make sure I have everything I need for diabetes. My schedule is ruff with 5 classes and lord only knows how much homework this time but I am better prepared for it this time. I went to the doctors to get my check up and ensure I can tackle whatever comes up this yr with school, work, and Diabetes.

Holidays and EMS

She is 6 yrs old and it is days before Christmas she is calling 911 for daddy. He is on the floor and won't wake up. They were working on the decorations for the Christmas party tomorrow and he just fell out. Dispatch is telling me the details of the little girls call. It has already created that sinking feeling in my stomach, she is alone with him mom died earlier in the yr and so it was just the 2 of them. We pull up to a beautifully decorated home nicely trimmed. We knock and the lil blond hair and brown eyed 6 yr old lets us in. We run to the kitchen and there is the man she could not recall his age she said " he is my dad so he is old" her tears are tearing my heart in two but I must focus her father is in need. we asked fire to stay with us to keep the lil girl away while we work to save him. Fire also looks around and finds his wallet and med's so i had something to work with. He works for a neighboring fire dept that makes him our brother. We work hard to convert his A fib it is not working drug after drug and shock after shock nothing is working. but wait there is a change he is now PEA uggh really we pack him and go the lil girl rides in the front in tears and ask my partner rich "you guys are going to make him better right?" We arrive at the hospital in record time and I hand him over to the code team. In my mind I know he does not have a chance but I hope against all odds that he pulls through. The nurse takes the lil girl and we must head out to yet another call but when we dropped off the next pt we ask and the nurse didn't have to say one thing the whole story was in her eyes. As for the little girl they were in the process of finding family since not one of them had the heart to put her in custody of the state days before Christmas. Thank goodness we found the number to her aunt in her dads cell phone. I couldn't help but shes a tear for that sweet girl.

Exam stress

I am not one to freak out, I mean heck I am a medic for goodness sakes and every here and then I have to save someone based off of my skills and I am cool with that. These exams are going to be the death of me I mean I don't understand why I feel so much anxiety about the exams! They are not hard I think more then anything I am overwelmed and that is making me think I am just going to bomb them! I never felt like this before I mean don't get me wrong I had my fair share of hard college exams before but this is just eating me alive! I can't sleep and my mind can't focus! My blood sugars are really paying the price and I am sure they are not helping me along either. I am questioning everything I study it is just my mind goes blank ( well not blank more like off to a distant land like J.D in scrubs with his day dreams ). I just want my A's I have worked too hard to get anything less. I swear tomorrow I might be in a padded room with high doses of anxiety meds you know a lil of haldol and xanax and prob. some antipsych meds too!! please for the love of God I want my A!! okay I feel slightly better back to the books.

Finals and diabetes

So as every good diabetic does I made sure I was eating well and getting sleep and not over doing it throughout the whole semester until finals week. Now let me start by saying I am a freaking studying machine the two weeks of finals and this time it got the best of me. It started with a meal skip here or there and then no sleep nights and then the less testing equals more study time which by the way is a big NO NO!! don't ever rely on the CGM for results people. always test!! Okay now I got to my fist class that morning did fine and was going to put in my CGM right after class since I was running late last Thursday. I forget to put it in because I was getting in one more hr of study time with my group and then went to class. well I am not one to feel a low BG. I got to class and finally tested for the first time after not eating breakfast and my professor is a nurse and stands there always checking out the number before I take any exam and it popped up a 31 mg/dl. I was seriously like no way and trying to deny it while my professor is like sit don't move. He comes back with juice and crackers and tells me to eat it and then proceeds to lecture me on type 1 diabetes control and uses this time as a great way to instill certain diabetes points into my classmates. ugggh really?? I mean I am fine can we just take the test already?? uhh check again 37 mg/dl so he decides it is time for an ambulance I look at him like seriously?? I am still awake and can treat myself!! Not good enough for him so her comes medics into my class stretcher and all and they decide to agree with him and talk me into going saying that I could come back for the exam if the doc okays it. So off we go to the ER where the real problem happened. I get there and I know that this is the ER where my other professor works so I might get out real quick like. No she was not there and the doc comes in says to start a line and push D50 1 amp. ohh and eat this while they work on that. okay no problem. Well 14 IV sticks later including 2 EJ's it was not happening now I am all for showing some love to the ER staff they make my life easy most of the time but I sat in the room for 14 hrs with no IV access and a BG of no higher then 40 mg/dl at any given time! This is an epic fail on the ER docs part because her has the training to start a central line and it was warranted in this situation after finding I had a hella kidney infection which for some freakish reason always causes lows in me ( so ha so not my fault on lack of sleep or skipping meals well okay maybe a little) Anyways It is like 11 at night now mind you I got to the ER at 10:30 am and all this time with no access and no rising in BG. They sent me to the floor with no IV access and what they call a critically low BG. The floor flips a lid but has to take me and calls in the surgeon and he puts in a central line and apologies for the lack of care in the ER saying he was going to ensure this never happens again. Now even worse was the pic line person that was on call was 5 hrs away yes 5 but the on call surgeon who was great was there in 5 Min's. I get amp's of D50 and and put on a D 10 drip till morning. here pops in a nurse every hr to check the sugar and ensure my safe sleeping. My doc shows up in the morning and he apologizes for everything that was an epic fail and decided based on previous admissions and history that I needed a port for the future and he scheduled it with the surgeon who put in my central line and so now I am good with access for the future. Now my numbers are getting better and off of the D 10 I go and I shoot high in the 300's for the first time in a while so I feel like crapola and the doc didn't ask me what my correction factor was he just decided that 1 dose fits all or something cause he did the BG-100/20 which equaled out to be 7 units. Way to much for me people!! if it would have been calculated by my correction factor bg-100/50 I would have been fine but No lets not listen to the diabetic who deals with her doses daily!! I fall asleep and the nurse comes in to check the sugar and finds I am at 41 and wakes me up and I am  so tired and sweaty and it was my professor she was working the floor that night and had me some juice and why I am addicted to gram crackers in the hospital with the lil peanut butter cups I have no clue but she had those too ( I have been known to grab a couple on busy days when I am dropping off a pt ) She told me about the port placement and how that was going to go and asked me if it was okay to talk to my other professors about still being here and needing an extension on my exams and said heck yeah. so I am assuming it was a slow night cause she sat in there with me for a bit till I was nice and leveled again and then she did all my checks for the rest of the night instead of the tech. I learned a lot from her though out this stay with her care towards patients and families and even other nurses she showed me compassion and Patience's she also showed me how a true nurse is the patients advocate. She stayed after he shift was over and was there when I got out of the surgery for the port ( not as bad as I thought BTW ) and she even helped me knock out some studying for exams I got out of the hospital 6 days after my admission and was spoken too by the hospital administration who I guess was worried I was going to make a big fuss over this who ER fail thing but I told them while I am really upset that it happened I just wanted to ensure that it never happened again. A lot of nurses ( my professor said they should have been questioning the doc as to why he was not treating my lows more aggressively and made sure that I was okay because A BG of 40 and below for 14 hrs is unacceptable )
I am not a sue happy person and that is usually what happens that causes the health care to go through the roof. I just don't want anyone else to ever have to deal with that. They assured me that they are reprimanding the doc and nurses and also implementing new polices so this never happens again. Would I go to this hospital again? yes I would I know that this was the failure of a few not the whole hospital and that they are in the process of fixing everything as well. hey good news for me is new port = no iv sticks or digging although that port access needle is huge!! lol

diabetes picture day

I never take the time to share many pictures with you guys but today I thought I would give you a glimpse into my households life with diabetes.

This is what the diabetes supply drawers look like when you have not 1 but three type 1 diabetics in your home. That is 4 boxes of reseviors for each totaling 12 boxes, then you have 300 test strips per person that is 900 test strips per person per 3 months so grand total of 2700 test strips, then we have 4 boxes of infusion sites per person which is total of 12 boxes plus you have to add in the random extra test strip brands that we have for "just in case" times. There are 3 boxes of sensors per person =9 boxes plus iv preps and ketone strips and glucose tabs and 27 bottles of insulin plus the back up boxes of lantus pens and humalog pens for pump failures or pump vacation times! All of these supplies keeps 3 of us alive for 3 months amazing huh?

this will make any diabetics day look at the matching numbers on my CGM to my meter and not to mention that beautiful straight line! that took some careful work on my part but so worth it!!

And last but not least this was in celebration of world diabetes day 2010.

Happy world diabetes day!! 2010

Today is World diabetes day and although many of my fellow bloggers posted on the 6 things you want people know about diabetes already I thought today would be perfect for this post since this is what this day is about. Increased education on diabetes and spreading the word. so for your reading pleasure her are the 6 things I want to share about diabetes:
1. I have type one, no I did not eat too much sugar and junk nor did I not exercise enough. My body killed of my Beta cells in my pancreas and left me insulin - less. Thus there is no amount of exercise or good eating that will stop me from having to take insulin. It is not my fault people! lol I feel better now.
2. This disease is 24/7/365 days a yr! It does not sleep nor does it take a vacation. I am not sick but I fight each day to keep from getting sick. there is so much that goes on behind the scene to keep us healthy. this includes and please remember every diabetic varies more or less on each event but for example purposes my care goes something like this. prick and test my blood 8 times a day and more if I am off on my numbers rather that be a low or high. pump site change as well as a CGM site change 1 time every three days. count carbs at least 3 times a day if not more. pack the diabetes bag each day to ensure I am prepared. when I hear a beep I always wonder if it is my pump or CGM alerting me to changes in my blood sugar or problems with insulin flow. At some point in the day a number I was not expecting will pop up only proving to me that no matter how prepared and knowledgeable I am on my disease I can not control it perfectly.
3.We need a cure people!! We would love to enjoy a life without the worry of complications or parents wondering if they did everything right today. what is next?!? I don't enjoy sticking myself even when I act like all is right in the world please know that behind that smile there is worry.
4. Stop just taking the medias word on diabetes!! We are not all the same!! there are different types people!!
5.despite my amount of knowledge on diabetes after living with it for over 16 yrs plus a medical background I am still scared of diabetes!! I am scared of complications, and going to bed and not waking up, doing it all right.
6. Some diabetes etique for those who might encounter a diabetic along the way. Do not ask us if we can eat that, do not treat us any different then anyone else we are people too, don't freak out when we test or take a shot or bolus I mean we have to do it. It keeps me alive!, if you have questions then ask we are usually more then willing to educate others on diabetes.

I really hope that if you don't have diabetes that you will never have to truly understand this disease and everyday life with it. so to all my friends happy world diabetes day and enjoy!! My family and I will be enjoying some blue cupcakes diabetes friendly of course as well as a great day at the park!! ohh and for the big blue test my test was 131 mg/dl before then after 14 mins of exercise 129 mg/dl. so there you have it!!