An Update from the Infirmary

First-- Joseph is doing just fine.

But I'll backtrack a moment because when I googled "H1N1" and "child with diabetes," I got nothing -- reassuring or otherwise. So here is our experience thus far:

As I said in my last post, Joseph spiked a fever early Friday morning. Well, by early afternoon he was showing all the symptoms: cough, headache, fatigue... and his fever had climbed to 102 two hours after I'd given him a fever reducer (ibuprofen).

In the meantime, his endo's office faxed a prescription for a 5-day course of Tamiflu to our pharmacy -- Joseph received his first dose by 10am (within four hours of showing symptoms).

The worst of this thing came overnight, when both his blood sugars and body temperature skyrocketed:


Amazingly, he spilled only trace ketones.

Further, by morning Joseph's fever broke and his sugars came down.

We saw a two-hour post breakfast bg spike before he joined me and Evan on the couch early Saturday afternoon. The three of us cuddled together under a soft blanket while I read Prisoner of Azcaban aloud for the next hour and a half.

Then Joseph stood up rather suddenly and headed toward the kitchen.

"Bud, are you all right?"

"Yeah," he called back, "I just want to do a check."

"47" I heard him say.

Immediately I'm off the couch.

"Bud, did you feel like you were dropping?"

"Just a minute ago."

He took five glucose tabs without my prompting and returned to the couch.

"Keep reading," he said.

Apart from that unexpected low, he felt much better than he had the day before -- until later in the afternoon when his fever spiked yet again (this time not as high -- 101.4) and his bgs rose as well:


But overnight, he didn't feel hot . . . and his sugars drifted back down.

By Sunday morning, it seemed the worst of it had passed. Though he didn't sound good and still had a miserable cough, his fever was (and still is) completely gone.

His blood sugars on Sunday, his third day since onset, looked like this:


"Amazing, Bud... I can't believe how fast you're getting through this thing."

"Mom, my immune system is beast," he said simply.

So that's Joseph. Still coughing a whole lot-- but much, much better.

Evan, however, is another story.

She's had this thing since Friday the 11th -- and is still sick.

Her fever drops to a low-grade 99-and-change for a day, and then spikes to 101-plus the next. I'd been in contact with her doctor mid-week, and then again late Friday-- after yet another fever spike.

"Sandra, you need to bring her to urgent care and get a chest x-ray. I don't like that the fever is spiking this late and her cough is worsening."

So off we went to urgent Care, while Ryan stayed home with Joseph.

"Mama, I'm scared," she says in a muffled voice through the mask they've required her to wear.

"Honey, it's all right. You'll be fine... and this won't hurt at all -- I promise."

"But it hurt last time."

"Last time?"

"When I had an x-ray and they were bending my leg on that table."

I look at her -- blanking for a moment -- and then I'm amazed that she remembers that.

After much waiting (wherein Evan and I scan the pages of her book for Waldo, Wenda and Wizard Whitebeard) she has both an exam and x-ray.

Happily, her chest is clear and her respirations are only a little rapid.

Today, Evan still has a horrendous cough -- but after 10 days with this thing, her temp is finally normal.

I'm just hoping this holds.

Well, it's here

"Mama, why don't you write on your blog anymore?"

I stop typing the press release I'm working on and look down at my girl's pale face, her dark brown and uncharacteristically watery eyes.

"Honey, I- well I've been busy with my job and you kids... and well... I don't know. Why do you ask?"

"Because I miss it."

"You miss it," I say with a smile, "but Honey, you didn't really read it."

"I did sometimes. And I liked it."

Suddenly I can see my little girl, sitting on my lap, staring at my computer screen as I type -- asking questions or laughing about the post I'm writing as the words appear one-by-one on the screen in front of us.

"I miss it too... Honey, do you want me to read you more Potter?

"Yes!" she says, then coughs loudly for several long seconds into her arm. I lean down and kiss her forehead.

Hot again.

"Sweetie, let's check your temp again first, okay?"

She's been home all week... fever and coughing.

H1N1

Her school nurse told me she's been sending 3-6 kids home a day.

And now, Joseph has it too.

He woke up this morning with a sore throat and a 100 degree fever -- exactly the same as Evan last Friday. I've got a call in to his endo.

Has anyone out there had H1N1? Anyone's child with diabetes? Did you use Tamiflu?