Life and Death Part 1- At home

You just never know where life will go next. Sunday morning Erianna awoke, kind of stumbling around, and I knew her blood sugar was low. Her blood sugar read 56, low, but she had been lower before. I was making breakfast at the time, so I had her wait to eat. Erianna went back to her room, I continued making breakfast. A few minutes later, all the kids ran into the kitchen, saying "Erianna's hurting!" I ran back to her room and there she was, stiff, not responding. I recognized it as a seizure, and whisked her into the living room. She was stiff, she wouldn't look at anything or respond to us. I knew she was slipping from her seizure to a diabetic coma, which would end in death if we didn't act fast. We called 911, and watched as she started to curl up in a fetal position with fixated eyes.

Unfortunately, the 911 guy was no help at all to me, a mother watching her daughter become lifeless. I ended up having to quit talking to him, as I was only screaming at him anyway. My husband stayed by Erianna, yelling at her to keep her alert and making some sounds, as I tried to get the emergency glucose shot ready to give her. I gave her the shot, then ran for our tube of frosting gel. Remembering to put it under her tongue for quicker absorbtion, she was slowly starting to come around as long as we were keeping her alert. After running out of frosting, I got the maple syrup.

By the time the EMT's arrived, Erianna was conscious and able to respond. Her blood sugar was now 211, and they really had nothing more they could do (that's what happens when it takes 15 minutes for them to get to our house). So they left and we tried to get Erianna to eat something. If she didn't, her blood sugar would drop from all the sugar we had just given her.

All the kids were crying, but they all were so great. They stayed back and did things to help, like talking to the 911 guy for me, watching for the ambulence in the driveway, helping the little kids get dressed, finishing cooking breakfast.

To know that we saved her life, I can't believe we did it, but we did, and we are stronger now because of that. This ends part one, later will be part two, "At the hospital" as we did have to go to the hospital after all.

Till then,
Jenn