One Month

Last month on the 28th at this time I'd already visited the ER once, spent the day (and the evening before) with a vomitting Sugar Bear, called the ER at 2:30 and 5:30 and 7:30 and 10:15.  He'd gotten more and more lethargic as the day went on and by evening he couldn't even walk and wasn't coherent.  By 10:30 we were at the ER again and by 11pm I was told my son has type 1 diabetes and that he was in DKA (diabetic ketoacidosis) and that we were being taken to the PICU.  I cried.  A month later and he is doing okay.  We're adjusting.  I still have flashbacks to the triage room with the numerous nurses and doctors poking and hooking up my child to wires and IVs.  His fingers were so chewed up from that experience; he has scars.  He was so out of it that he didn't cry or flinch or even seem to notice any of what the health care professionals were doing.  He doesn't remember and for that I 'm thankful.  He doesn't really remember the PICU room either.  Things I remember-- he tried to chew the red light monitor off his finger numerous times, in a daze he tried to get up and out of the bed to go who knows where, when he did talk during his incoherence he kept saying can I go home,  I couldn't and didn't sleep until we were moved to the regular part of the hospital, every hour they came in and had to draw or check blood sugars, the doc checking his brain responses when he was completely out of it and him telling me his brain had some swelling,  the wetting of the bed because he didn't wake at all, the first smile when I knew he'd come back, the utter exhaustion, the animal footprints on the PICU ceiling, the nice nurses, the way everyone kept me informed even if it seemed like they were speaking a foreign language, a friend bringing food,  the hugs from two beautiful friends, the outpouring of love from our friends and family online, the phone call from our friend in Michigan in the middle of the night, My Mom on the phone, the feeling of loneliness in a dark hospital room in the ICU, hearing the little girl on the floor near our room, the pamphlets that made me cry, and more.  A month.  Every moment precious.  Every day I've cried.