Sunday morning I went to bed just fine ans set my alarm for 6 to get up for work. 4:30 am however I was up vomiting and delirious. Luckily I have a dexcom and I could see my bg was fine. I just brushed my teeth and went back to bed hoping I ate something weird.
I went to work and kept trying to sip water but I was way too nauseous and out of it so I went home sick by 10 am. Crawled into bed and slept another 7 hours. At this point I woke up extremely thirsty but completely unable to drink because I would puke. I realized that despite having BGs in the 130-150 range I should probably check my ketones and sure enough they were moderate.
I've very rarely seen ketones before and I've never been this nauseous so I called my on call endo and she recommended the usual sip water, monitor bg, and go in if the ketones don't go away within 4 hours.
Just two hours later they had gone up to large. At that point it was 8 pm and I decided I needed to get fluids in me. I hadn't been able to drink more than maybe two cups all day and hadn't managed to eat a single bite. I checked in at the ER and proceeded to wait for two and a half hours while struggling to sip water and not puke.
Finally I tested again, still had large ketones and I was getting impatient. I went up and asked how many people were ahead of me. Lucky me, there's only 10 ahead now, there were 19 when I arrived. Halfway through! At that point I asked if I was going to have to go into DKA before they finally just hooked me up to an iv drip. My paramedic dad was with me and if they just handed him the fluids he could have gotten it in me. I know that's not how it works but I'm sitting here completely dehydrated to the point my heart was racing, I was having trouble staying awake, and my whole body ached, and I'd had large ketones for over 6 hours now.
At the mention of DKA they finally took me back and insisted on a urine sample before we start. I tried to explain over and over how I had just used every drop in me to test my ketones and I hadn't had any water since 36 hours ago so no. I need fluids per my endocrinologists recommendations.
What could have been a quick resolution to a relatively simple problem was so unnecessarily difficult. And on top of that a different hospital I had tried earlier ended up finishing with all their waiting patients so I called insurance to see if they're going to cover a visit to a different ER in the same night and they said absolutely not. I have to stay at the first one despite the other one being completely wait free.
Sorry for the rant. I'm doing completely fine now and getting my appetite back to normal. I just was so upset at how everything went that night and I was scared out of my mind sitting there watching my BG and knowing I could do nothing to fix my own problems.
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