The ER

March 13, 2013
 It was about 9:30 when we headed up to the emergency room, maybe closer to 10:00. Luckily, I didn't have to go alone, I had my mother with me and my best friend Jake to go with me. It took me a long time to decide that I wanted to go up. I kept thinking what if it's nothing and then I just rack up emergency room bills for no reason, or what if it's really serious, do I really want to know? When we got up there I told them how I was having some discomfort and pain in my chest, I thought it'd be a long time before we'd get back, it wasn't. Right after she was finished checking all my information they brought a wheelchair, had me sit and wheeled my right back. I felt bad because there was a girl who came in at the same time as me, close to my same age who was also having chest pains. She looked way worse than I did. I almost wanted to tell them to  take her back first. We were off and to the back before I got a chance.

 We got back into the room and they had me put on a gown. :( After I had it on they came in and started getting a list of all my symptoms and telling me all the tests they were going to run. While they were asking me all these questions they were also doing an EKG on me and just going a million miles a minute. They were talking about a few different ideas of what it could be and how they'd test for it. They talked about doing a lot of blood tests.. I hate blood tests because that means I have to have my blood drawn. :( After they were done asking me questions they came in to start running some tests. That's when they asked me to do a UA (Urine analysis). I just love those :/ Ten minutes later they came in to put in an IV and draw some blood.  That's when I was happy Jake came so he could hold my hand and distract me from the needle in my arm. I was happy he came anyways but this was a bonus. He was up and by my side anytime a needle came in the room and always reassured me how good looking my blood is. I was also very happy that the one guy who drew my blood from my wrist which was very painful was so nice and tried really hard to make me feel better and you could tell he felt bad for doing it. I had a lot of very sweet people in the ER taking care of me which I was very appreciative of. They had two bags of saline they wanted to get in my IV to get me hydrated. All the visitors with needles seemed to slow down for a while and we were just in the room waiting. The doctor came in and talked to me about my symptoms and some possible explanations. He was very good at reassuring me they'd do all the tests they could to figure out what it was. Unfortunately this took more blood being drawn. I think they took at least nine vials in the ER to do tests. I got used to the little box they carry around and knew when they were coming to take my blood.  They told me a lot of possibilities and all the different tests they'd run if a certain test came out a certain way, all of which are lost on me now. They did this for a good two hours. It was about 12:30 that night when the doctor came in with his findings. As much as they mentioned this being a possibility I didn't even think anything of it because they had mentioned so many things. All of the thinking and freaking out over the worst case scenarios nothing prepared me for this. Maybe because I didn't even think it was a real possibility, even after the nurse had talked to me about it and told me it's likely. I guess it really just took the doctor saying it to get it into my head. "You have diabetes."

 My heart just sank and I wanted to cry, but I wasn't going to let myself.. I looked at Jake and my mother and there faces read the same. Complete shock. He was telling me how he was positive it was early onset type 1 diabetes. How my blood sugar level which should normally be 65-90 was 500. How all of my symptoms (other than the pains in my chest, we still don't know what that is) are symptoms of diabetes. The question "Is this something that'll go away after taking care of it?" came up and unfortunately the doctors answer was no. That was devastating, just thinking I have diabetes, I am going to have this the rest of my life was a haunting thought. The discussion went longer than this seems, we did talk about it in a lot more detail. I just can't remember for the life of me. A lot of the conversations have blurred into a big mess of words. Now I just had to wait for another doctor who has a very large interest in diabetes to come in and talk to us about further treatment before they admitted me. In the mean time they took my blood sugar and I believe they gave me an insulin shot in the ER before I went up to my room. I can't remember anymore. He finally came in and just gave me more information on diabetes and told me he would take me on as a regular patient if I wanted. It was about 1:30 or 2:00 before I went up to my room. They had me get in another wheelchair and wheeled me up there. Did I mention I hate wheelchairs? They make me feel so helpless. This began my hospital stay..