An Unexpected Tragedy

This week, I was supposed to blog about a product that I use and love. And maybe include a video of me using the product. But then something catastrophic happened in my life. I went upstairs to find my son Max, who has Type 1 diabetes and Addison’s disease, unconscious on his bedroom floor.

He stayed home from school Friday because he had a headache, and went up to his room to lay down around 9am. At 1:20pm he hadn’t come down and hadn’t responded to my repeated calls upstairs. When I went upstairs he appeared to be asleep, he was breathing but unresponsive. I checked his blood sugar, he was 50 and because his blood sugar was low and he was unresponsive, I gave him Baqsimi (a nasal spray used for low blood sugar) which was in his room. His sugar was not coming up and so I raced to my room and got his Glucagon kit ( this is a shot that you mix and inject to raise low blood sugar), that got him up to 90. But he was still unresponsive. I then realized he needed his Cortisol shot (this is used as a life saving injection for people who are adrenal insufficient - Addison's Disease, because they don’t make enough cortisol, sometimes none at all to cope with stressful  events, or in Max’s case low blood sugar). After I gave him the cortisol shot, which typically helps him, he started having a seizure, I called 911.

 The seizure did not stop, and it felt like an eternity before EMS arrived. They gave him seizure medication, the seizure continued even after giving him two more doses and oxygen. The seizure stopped after the third dose, but he had another in the ambulance. When I got there the doctors and nurses were working on him in trauma. 

He’s had low sugars that have caused seizures before, but  he recovered from those fairly quickly after giving him the glucagon injection. This time it’s different. He has been unresponsive since I found him on his bedroom floor. He is unable to open his eyes or communicate in any form. It is currently Sunday afternoon.

He was transferred to University Hospitals Rainbow Babies and Children’s Hospital late Friday night, and admitted to the pediatric intensive care unit. Saturday afternoon his breathing became unstable and they had to intubate him. Besides him coding, this is the worst case scenario. They have done a CT Scan, an MRI, and are currently attempting a lumbar puncture for the third time in 24 hours. 

I am terrified, the doctors cannot tell me what is wrong with my son. They have no answers. All I can do is cry and pray. He’s such a good kid, he’s a senior in high school. He doesn’t deserve this. I just want to hear his voice once more, I want him to come back to me and to his family. And at the same time, I’m worried that while he may come back, he may not come back as the same boy that he was. But that is okay, because I will always be there to love, protect, and support his every need. And while I know that I should put my faith in God and trust that there is a higher reason for why this is happening at this time, I am struggling to do so right now.

Until Max comes out of this, I will be posting updates to this website, and Pinterest. I will also be vlogging about my experiences as his mother while he is at UH Rainbow. And hopefully this can help someone else going through a medical nightmare in their lives. But I also think that by documenting my experience as a parent of a child in critical condition, that it will help to keep me sane during this difficult time. Writing this post has been therapeutic, and has helped to improve my mental state. Please keep Max in your thoughts and prayers. He needs a lot of love right now.