Friday, October 26, 2007

Go away sickies!!!

What a week this has been! Doug won't be back until Saturday (tomorrow), think they got a bit of a late start on Tuesday and didn't get as far as they would of liked. So he should be hopefully rolling in around late morning /early afternoon. It will be sooo nice to have him back home with us. It's been a tough 6 months or so without him here. Though it has helped a lot to be back home with all of our family.

Well lets see, we are still battling off this nasty bug...but I'm hoping that the end is in sight. Jayde right now seems to be on the mend. Ryann, Jaxon and C.J. have still been having a bit of diarhea. And poor Doogie caught this bug too. I had sent him over to my in-laws hoping that if I kept him away from everyone he might miss getting this. No such luck! He started throwing up later that night, and has been having some diarhea as well. We went ahead and kept him over there though. I figured that that way he would get some one on one and hopefully get over it quicker. And I think he has been feeling a bit neglected since we found out about Ryann's diabetes and hasn't been getting as much attention as I would like to be giving him (and all of them!) So I knew he would get that over there, and I could work on getting all the rest of them healthy as well! My mom ended up getting a little of this bug too, though she just got a bit of an upset stomach and by the next day felt alot better. So far I have lucked out in not catching this, but I am exhausted! I haven't been getting much sleep with being up with the baby and having to check Ryann's blood sugar in the middle of the night to make sure it is up where it is supposed to be. So keep your fingers crossed that I don't catch this and that everyone is really on the mend this time!

So nothing super exciting going on. Ryann's blood sugar levels have been looking pretty good this week, she's had a few lows but nothing like she had that one night! The big challenge is finding the right kind of foods and getting her to eat enough to get what she needs. Right now it's been kind of just giving her whatever she will eat and it hasn't always been super healthy. So we need to get on a routine again and work on that. I know that in her case a carb is a carb, but I want her to atleast be eating some more healthier carbs! She is getting alot better at letting me check her blood and getting her insulin shots. I let her clean her fingers with an alcohol wipe and pick which one she wants me to do and than she also likes to help load the test strip and get her blood sample (with some help). Her insulin shots are still a bit more tricky, though she does do alot better staying still for me now. I find she does better if I put one of the cats next to her to hold. I think she is starting to realize that this isn't going to be stopping any time soon! She now goes around and pretends that she is poking her fingers and all of ours, her toys, the pets, etc... with this little toy (I think it used to be the top part of a spinning top). It has a button you push and a little plastic knob pops out. I don't think it will be much longer before she is testing her own blood sugar (with some supervision!)

So anyways, we are hanging in here, and just trying to get everyone healthy and get back on a routine again. We have to make some adjustments since Ryann needs to not only get her three meals a day in but also 3 snacks to keep her levels where they are supposed to be at. But I wanted to thank everyone for all their thoughts and prayers they have really meant alot to us. And I promise one of these days I will upload some more pictures!! :)

Wednesday, October 24, 2007

Lots has been happening....

Wow! Where to begin... Hmmmm... let's start with the good stuff first! So first of all Doug is on his way home!! He should hopefully be here by Friday and then start work on Monday. We are all very excited and happy to have him back, the kids keep asking me if Daddy is going to stay for good this time. Now if we can get that house sold we will be doing really good, but atleast we have family to stay with until that time and than we can find ourselves a place of our own.

Other news....Well on Thursday (the 18th) I took Ryann in to the doctor. I thought that she might be having a bladder infection since she had been drinking fluids like crazy and just soaking herself constantly...I knew something was going on. When I took her in I got the news that no, she didn't have an infection, what she has is Type 1 Diabetes. Her blood sugar was so high that it didn't even read on their meter (so we are thinking over 500) and the ketones in her urine were very large. So they told me that I needed to be in Spokane with her at the children's hospital by 4 1/2 hours. Which meant I had to do a lot scrambling! Not to mention I was still in shock about the whole thing. I am so glad that we moved back home otherwise I don't know what we would of done. I was lucky enough that my mother-in-law and father-in-law were able to drive up there with me (we went up on Thursday and they let us go home Saturday afternoon). I also had C.J. with me since I couldn't leave him behind! Once we got there we got a whole bunch of information thrown at us. I think the first day I hardly took any of it in. But after they tell you the same thing numerous times the information starts to seep in.

It was nice to get back home on Saturday...originally they said we should stay until Sunday, but since Ryann was doing better and I seemed to be soaking up the information okay, they let us leave early. On Sunday morning however (our first full day home) Ryann started throwing up! I don't know if she picked up a bug at the hospital (since our roomie had the same symptoms) or if she got it somewhere else. But it wasn't fun! I was on the phone most of the day with both the doctor's up in Spokane (who I can call 24 hrs a day) and our family doctor here (who is also type 1 Diabetes). And they have been walking me through things over the phone. By Sunday afternoon I thought that she was doing better since she had stopped throwing up, but then on Monday night she started having diarhea. Her blood sugar started dropping, I couldn't get her to take anything for me (drink or food wise) to get it back up. I got some karo syrup and started rubbing it into her gums and tongue (which she didn't really enjoy!) But even that wasn't getting it to go back up again and she was really out of it and it was getting hard to wake her up and get any type of response out of her (very, very scary!) So I was back on the phone with the doctors and since I wasn't able to get her to take anything orally and I was afraid if I tried she would choke. We had to do the Glucagen shot (which puts a bunch of glucose into her system and is supposed to raise up her blood sugar level by 50-75). That was not fun to do, the needle was so much bigger and thicker than her tiny insulin shots. But it did work in about 10-15 minutes she started waking up and I was then able to force feed her with a syringe some orange juice to get her level up a bit higher. And then I was up every couple of hours or so checking her levels.

Wednesday morning she seemed to be feeling alot better, but I wanted to take her to see the doctor just to have her looked at and ask questions and what not. While we were gone at the doctor's Jaxon started throwing up. He threw up most of the morning (just like Ryann did) and than by the afternoon he acted like he was feeling better too. Then that afternoon, Ryann started up again with the diarhea. So we had to really watch her blood sugar levels and keep fluids down her.

This morning everyone woke up acting like they felt okay. Jaxon so far (knock on wood) seems to be over this. Ryann a little off on her game still and still has been having a bit of an upset tummy. But now Jayde is throwing up and having diarhea and feeling pretty crummy. And the little guy (C.J.) has been throwing up too! Poor little guy is having a very rough time. We took him into the doctor's to have him looked at just because he is only 3 months old and we don't want him to get dehydrated. The doc said that even though you can tell he really doesn't feel good, he didn't look like he was dehydrated. So we have been trying to give him a little fluid a bit at a time and keep it down. The doctor said if he does get worse though to give him a call (luckily he is on call tonight) and then we would have to take him into the ER to get some fluids. Hopefully it won't come to that though. I really don't want to have to go back to the hospital again!

So...right now the only ones who haven't gotten sick yet is Doogie and us adults (knock on wood that we don't get sick too!) My mother-in-law picked up Doogie from school today for me (which was a huge help) and than she just took him back to her house. I figure the longer he is away from us sickies over here the better chance he has of not catching this. So he is going to spend the night over there and she'll take him to school and than pick him up tomorrow and we'll go from there and see how everyone is feeling.

So anyways, we have been hit with a bunch of things all at once and if you could keep us all in your thoughts and prayers we would really appreciate it! And I will try to add some pictures later!! :)