Wednesday, October 13, 2010

A day of low bgs, and a fuming conversation with a McDonalds manager

Let me start from where I left you all off last night, at the midnight check.
So, midnight rolled around last night and his blood sugar was 115.  WOOHOO! GREAT! However, I still anticipated a low, but not until atleast 5am or breakfast time.

3am rolls around. 69. Sigh. Gave him 2 glucose tabs and rechecked at 3:30. He went up to 81.

I weighed the pros and cons on that one. Overnight, his endo's don't want him to be lower than 80. I let it go and rechecked him at 4:15am. 136 bg.

Oh yeah! Maybe we got this thing whipped!

Breakfast was at 7am and he had his usual breakfast that he almost always has. His blood sugar was 125 at that time. He was dosed at 7:15 am.

Again... YEAH! We're back on track!

Or so we thought.

8:45am I get a phone call from the school nurse. "I just wanted to call and let you know that Lenny fell in the hallway. He didn't hit his head or anything, but he seemed confused, so I checked his sugar. It was 187."

My first words...."thats not high enough an hour and a half after eating breakfast! Keep a very close eye on him for a low." I was on the phone with her till about 9:15 or 9:30. She said she has him sitting right next to her right now (in the classroom) and as of that moment, he seemed like he was fine. I said, ok, just watch for a low, because it sounds to me like hes going to crash.

10am snack time comes around. At about 10:20am I get a phone call. She said his blood sugar was 51 for snack, she gave him 4 glucose tabs, waited 15 minutes and rechecked him and he came up to 135. Ok, I never seen a jump like that after correcting a low then rechecking 15 mins later, but, I wont complain! She said she gave him a 16g carb snack (goldfish crackers) and dosed him for the snack carbs. Not a problem, worst case scenario he will be high at lunch.

Lunch time is at 12:15pm.  By 12:20 I hadn't heard anything, so I called the school. I feel bad cuz I interrupted the lunch time (head nurse) nurse's lunch when I called, but I just had to check on him. She said his blood sugar before lunch was 230. I asked her if she had any idea about the activity level in the classroom this morning to see if that crash could have been caused by that. She said no, but they typically dont have much activity during that time... the teachers keep things pretty routine and structured, but, she said she'd see if she could find out and give me a call to let me know. There was no change in routine in the classroom.

So, then I get a phone call at 1:40pm... right before gym class. His blood sugar was 289. HMMM. Only a 59 point increase since lunch. Something's not right. I told her its not as high as it should be an hour and a half after lunch. He should have, at the very least, been in the 300s, if not 400s by then. I told her, again, watch for low symptoms. Actually, I BEGGED her to keep an extremely close eye on him during gym class. Gym class is 40 minutes long. I also asked her to call me back for every check there on after.

She called me back at 2:20pm, for his after gym class blood sugar check. He was 234. I said, well, that was a good 55 point drop. She asked me if he could go to recess because he was BEGGING to go LOL! I hesitantly said yes, go ahead, and begged again to keep close tabs on him. I told her, again, I'm expecting a crash again by the end of the day. Recess is 20 minutes long.

She called me back at 2:50pm for his before afternoon snack blood sugar reading. She said he was 136.

I told her he is most definitely going to crash by the time he gets home at 3:45pm-ish. She said she gave him the chocolate covered pretzels snacks (100 calorie snack pack... 16-20g carbs) already, I told her to give him the cheese stick I put in the diabetes back that morning. He WOOFED that down fast... she said it was like in 2 bites HAHA! I told her to go ahead and bolus for the snack carbs, that I was going to call my husband and see if he could pick Lenny up from school instead of putting him on the bus because I was scared he would have a severe crash on the bus, then I'd call her back to let her know. Hubby was already having to pick up our daughter from Head Start after he got off work, and should be able to just swing by and pick him up as well on his way back home. The school is a 2 minute drive from my house. Literally.

So, called Hubby, he said he would but to verify that he could with the school because the school doesn't like last minute decisions on that. So, I called the secretary and asked her if it was ok, told her its kind of an emergency situation because I'm scared to let Lenny ride the bus today with the way his blood sugars are acting. She said its fine, just have him stop by the office to write a quick note stating Lenny would be a "walker" today. I said ok. Called Hubby back to let him know. Then called the nurse back to let her know, appearently the secretary had already told the nurse by the time I called back. I told the nurse "If my husband isnt there by 3:30, would you be able to do another quick blood sugar test just to give me an idea of where he stands, and call me back. She said she would.

I get a call back at 3:30pm on the nose. His blood sugar was 71. 40 minutes after eating snack he dropped another 65 points. I asked her to give him 2 glucose tabs.

On the way to my daughters dr appointment I checked his blood sugar in the car again at 4pm. He was 124. YAY!!

We wound up eating dinner late because of the dr appointment and traffic, which really had me worried. But, at 5:42pm his blood sugar was 129. WAHOO! For dinner, we went to McDonalds. He had a kids meal Hamburger and apples meal. No drink because the morons working there messed up our order... AGAIN! 4th consecutive time in the last 4 times we've been there!

They gave him a REGULAR coke instead of a DIET coke like we asked. Hubby said he even checked the screen to verify they put DIET on the order. So, needless to say, I called them and spoke to the manager!
I told the manager "Whoever you have working the drive through window seriously needs to be FIRED! The last FOUR TIMES in a row... FOUR CONSECUTIVE VISITS to your establishment, the person working the drive thru window has messed up my 5 year old, type 1 diabetic child's order. The last TWO times, she screwed up his drink. This time she gave him a REGULAR coke instead of a DIET coke like we requested. The last visit, she screwed up his meal as well as gave him REGULAR, SWEETENED iced tea, instead of UNSWEETENED iced tea." She proceeded to ask me if I had a receipt. I went searching through all the bags, pulled absolutely EVERYTHING out of those bags looking for a receipt. No receipt!

I said "No, she didnt give us a receipt... but she sure as hell gave us more than enough straws!" (yeah, she had 6 straws in the bag, plus 4 on our drink carrier!) She asked me to tell her what the order was and she would try to do some sort of a systems search to see if she could find the order. I told her, she did hear search, ironically, she couldnt find our order in the system. She said the only thing she could do, and will definitely do, is talk to both the workers that could have made the mistake, and stress the importance of correct orders, and explain to them that mistakes like this could severely harm a person with diabetes.

I said "Look. The last time I called and complained about this, my husband was already on his way down there to complain. You guys gave us 2 free kids meal tickets for our troubles. I don't give a crap about that. When you go talk to them, make damn sure you specify to them that this disgruntled customer specifically says "You are damn lucky I check my son's drinks before just handing them to him. Had I not done that, your mindless, unthoughtful mistake could have landed him in a hospital in a coma tonight. I assure you, if that were to happen, if it EVER happens, while my son is laid up in the hospital fighting for his life, my ass would be on the phone with a lawyer and suing someone!"

She said she understands my position, and would be doing the same thing in my position, bla bla bla, and said she would be sure to express the seriousness of their mistake. Am I feeling very confident about it? Um, no.

Anyway, after that explosion...

8pm snack time rolls around. Lenny's blood sugar was 71. Hubby gave him the normal snack (yogurt, hes been getting this same snack for MONTHS because it works so well for his overnight numbers), as well as a cheese stick to try to hold him through the night.

Midnight... 142! WAHOO! Did a 0 bolus (no insulin) just to keep the "check bg" alarm from going off throughout the night.

3am.. 107 bg. Not what I would call spectacular, but ok. Still expecting a low to show up either at 5am or 7am. Did another 0 bolus to make sure the pump would shut up during the night lol.

It is now 4am. I will be checking his sugar again in an hour to see where he stands.

I will update you all on his status tomorrow night. I do have a game plan for this if this decides to continue throughout the day tomorrow.

If you have any topic ideas in mind that you would like to see discussed here, please feel free to leave me a comment and let me know!

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