The end of my hospital stay

Along with my blood sugars being uncontrolled, which was bad enough, there were some other issues as well. Working in a sporting goods store, I had access to all of the latest styles of athletic footwear. Unfortunately, the fashionable sneakers I had been wearing led to what I thought was a "blister". Well, that "blister" turned into an infected diabetic ulcer. Suddenly I was being set up with a wound vac and crutches. I also had an MRI. This thing was pretty bad. At that point, there was no major infection, but I was on an antibiotic just in case.

My fifth full day in the hospital, after being transferred from ICU to a regular medical/surgical unit the night before, I woke up and realized while watching TV that suddenly everything seemed cloudy. What the heck? Now my vision was shot, too? I couldn't read a newspaper. I had trouble seeing the TV. It was like there was a hazy film over my eyes. I had no idea what was happening. I asked my dad if he could bring me a magnifying glass, and he found one at a pharmacy. It didn't really help that much, but I tried my best to read. Watching TV was tough. Looking back on it, I remember not truly understanding what was happening. I never mentioned it to the doctors in the hospital. I guess I was hoping the cloudiness would just go away. I also remember that my parents didn't say too much to me about the vision problems, even though they knew something was wrong. They understood that I already had enough to handle with my blood sugars, learning how to use insulin, and my foot. At the same time, they also knew that I would have to go see an ophthalmologist sooner than later. That wouldn't happen until March, though.

In the meantime, I was finally discharged from the hospital Thursday, January 31st. I went home to the apartment where I was living with Dad and Mom. I was set up with visiting nurses to come in and do wound care on my foot. Figuring out how to function on crutches with the wound vac was, believe it or not, a bigger challenge than learning about insulin, carbohydrates, etc. My mother would serve me meals from her motorized chair that she used in the apartment. She also taught me so much about using my health insurance, and she also learned about Type 1 diabetes along with me. Meanwhile, Dad was doing the food shopping and other errands, laundry, and driving me and Mom to all of our appointments, all while continuing to work parttime as an overnight police dispatcher at Moravian College Sundays and Mondays. I was very lucky to have both of my parents to help me. I swear that without them, I would have been in a nursing home. I did learn to adapt and do quite a bit for myself despite the crutches, but I still needed a lot of assistance. There was quite a bit of work to be done in upcoming months as I began my Type 1 diabetes journey. 

The first few days in the hospital

The first few days of that hospital stay are kind of a blur. My mom had completely lost her mobility by then. She had a motorized scooter at home and had to be pushed in a wheelchair to go to appointments. My dad, who used a cane at that point, was able to push her wheelchair and brought her to see me only one time, when I was still in the ICU. Otherwise, my dad came to the hospital almost every day. I will never really know what kind of grief my parents experienced seeing their almost 36-year-old daughter in ICU. Not cool.

My best friend, Beth, visited me. She has said she didn't like the numbers on my monitors in ICU. They scared her. Otherwise, my boyfriend at the time, Jason, and my dad's good friends Bill and Nancy, also visited.

My care team in the ICU was amazing. The ones who especially stand out in my mind include nurse Amanda, nurse Laura (who Amanda was training), and tech (nurse's assistant) Krisann (my former middle school basketball teammate). By Wednesday I was starting to feel a little better. Kris helped me bathe and she washed my hair. They got me sitting in a chair. Amanda came in my room and sat down on the edge of the bed. She said we were going to have "a talk".

She asked me to tell her my story and why I had ended up in the hospital. She asked me if I was going to start taking care of myself. I told her I was. And I meant it. That talk from a young rising star nurse was the beginning of my turnaround. 

But controlling my blood sugars was only the beginning of the challenges I faced. More to come . . .

January 20th, 2008

Sunday, January 20th, 2008 was the day my life would change forever. You will have to excuse me, because as I am sure you can understand, quite a bit of it is a blur. I hadn't been feeling well for a few days the week leading up to that weekend. However, by Saturday I felt well enough to attend basketball games at my alma mater, Moravian College, and an alumni reception afterward

Anyway, Sunday I woke up feeling quite ill. But I dragged my butt into work at Schuylkill Valley Sports in Allentown. Honestly, I will never really know how I made it through that shift. I had two high school students working with me -- Erika and Dave. They basically ran the store that day. I will always remember them and forever be grateful to them for that.

After work, my dad picked me up. Dave and Erika rode with us across the mall parking lot to the bank to drop the deposit in the overnight box. Then Dad drove me home. We left my car at the mall. I think my dad and his friend picked it up later that week.

Dad was going to drive me straight to the hospital, but I do remember suggesting to him that I go in an ambulance so that I would be seen sooner.  I knew it could take a while going through an emergency department waiting room.  So we went home and called 9-1-1.  The nearest hospital to the apartment where my parents and I lived was Lehigh Valley Hospital-Muhlenberg.  It was only a mile away.  In retrospect, I was fortunate to be taken there.  It would have a profound impact on my future, which I will write more about in future blog entries.

I don't remember a whole lot that happened once I got to the hospital. I do remember many people surrounding me in my little room in the ER. Later, I remember realizing I had been taken to the Intensive Care Unit. I recall quite clearly that I wasn't allowed anything to eat or drink for quite a while, and when a doctor finally allowed me to have some water, I called him a "rock star".

I will write more about that first hospital stay, as well as a couple others that year and some other health complications related to diabetes, in upcoming entries.  Thank you for reading this blog.

My original diabetes diagnosis story

Thank you for reading my blog! I hope to inspire and encourage people who are facing challenges, not just diabetes. It is also a way for me to process the emotions of dealing with Type 1 diabetes 365 days a year. It is not easy, but I do what I have to and I realize that I am a very lucky person. 

I was living in Chestertown, Maryland when I was originally diagnosed as a Type 2 diabetic in the summer of 1999. Yes, my original diagnosis was NOT Type 1. I was a sports information director at a small college, living in one room in someone's house with just a microwave and a small refrigerator. I thought at the time that diabetes was all about sugar and that I could eat all the "sugar free" stuff that I wanted to. I tested my blood sugar, took my pills, and for a while I thought I was doing OK. 

I moved to Ashland, Virginia in the summer of 2000, to work at another small college. This school had a football team, so the job would be much more demanding and the hours longer. For one year I lived in a very nice house with two football coaches, and for the next five years I lived in a small one-bedroom apartment by myself. I continued to do "OK" with the diabetes for the first year, or so I thought. Honestly, I really had no clue what I was doing. I got no education about carbohydrates and the complications of diabetes. My last five years in Virginia, I did NOTHING to take care of myself. Oh, yeah, I was also a chain smoker. I had started smoking cigarettes my senior year of college. And living alone, I drank way too much beer. My nutrition was horrible. I was a train wreck.  How I wasn't found dead in my apartment, I will never know. I was slowly destroying my body.

When my time in Virginia came to an end in the summer of 2006, I had nowhere to go but home to Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, to live with my parents in their apartment. I was so lucky to have them. After searching for fulltime work, I landed a position as an assistant manager of a sporting goods store. My parents and I lost our apartment in a fire in our building in April 2007. My mom's health started to deteriorate more and more. And I continued to ignore my health. All of that changed January 20th, 2008. More to come in my next entry . . .