Hayden in ICU

"Diabetic ketoacidosis (DKA) is a state of inadequate insulin levels resulting in high blood sugar and accumulation of organic acids and ketones in the blood. It is also common in DKA to have severe dehydration and significant alterations of the body’s blood chemistry. "

This is an online definition. Basically, his body, for whatever reason doesn't get enough insulin. This is usually onset by an upcoming illness which is what makes it so hard because his body will fight an illness before we see the symptoms of him getting sick. When he is sick he needs more insulin but sometimes by the time he gets the flu or whatever it is too late so his body is already short insulin. He then gets really sick and has high ketones. This causes swelling of the brain which makes him nauseous and then the vomiting starts. At that point it's all over. He gets dehydrated, causing higher blood sugars, causing higher ketones and the cycle spins out of control. This is usually the state a person is in when first diagnosed if waiting to long to see a dr.

Then all of his electrolytes are bouncing all over and out of control. So he requires an IV to flush his body. The ketones are basically an over spilling of acids from the kidneys because the kidneys are over worked at this point. Ketones are released through urine so he went through a total of 12 bags of IV fluids just for his ketones. In ICU he had 5 different bags of 5 different things being pumped into him.


The high blood sugar then causes his body to start "eating" it's own fat and then muscle (the reason to NEVER do the Atkins diet) because there is no sugar going to any of his cells outside of his blood. He lost almost 5 pounds. (Not my kid who needs to lose any weight:o)

Once we got his blood sugars under control we then had to wait until his body was free of all ketones. 48 hours later he was finally negative the ketones. His electrolytes were still all "funky" (which is evidently a technical medical term because I heard it a lot:o) He is on medicine for a week to even out his potassium and and couple of other electrolytes.

The last thing they were watching was his thyroid. This is where diabetics can get problems with thyroid. So far, he has been fine with that, thank goodness.

I came home feeling like I know NOTHING about diabetes, except I can neverlet Hayden get sick:o) I am looking into a bubble today.


Anyhow, that's it in a nutshell. He spent 24hours ICU and then 24 hours on the diabetic floor at Phoenix Children's Hospital. We LOVE that hospital.