Hi! Im back from our surprise trip to America! As i mentioned in a previous post we went to surprise Bens brother who lives in Seattle for his 30th birthday. We spent 10 days in Seattle & then had 3 days in LA. Was a great little break.....apart from the previously mentioned hospital stay! We left sydney along with Bens mum....
Flew for 15 hrs, 4 hrs in LA, 3hr flight to seattle & executed our surprise! We let bens brother & sister in law pick sue up from the airport while we had something to eat & then got a cab to their place to throw nic off the scent! Then knocked on their front door an hour later! Then that night we headed out to see their ACDC cover band
American Thighs! That bens bro on the right & sister in law in the middle! Great fun! Home to bed at 2:30am....40hrs or so with no sleep!............
Woke up the next day feeling like id been hit by a truck...just jet lagged? Then i started to throw up.....all day...my blood sugars went sky high (i have type one diabetes & am on an insulin pump).....by that night we decided we should make the trip to emergency at the hospital which was literally 50m from their house.....turns out it was very lucky we made that decision. I had a condition called DKA which is basically when your blood sugar levels are so high your blood turns acidic, which is extremely dangerous and can quite often result in going into a coma...or much worse. In 20 years of having diabetes it'd never happened to me! The doctors thought maybe i had a stomach bug causing the vomiting & then that had sent my blood high, they then took chest x rays & told me i had pneumonia (which they later changed their minds about!), i was also checked for blood clots.
I was so dehydrated my veins had shrunk to nothing & there were some very traumatic hours involving 8 different people trying to get drips in & take blood. I was then taken to intensive care at another hospital where i spent 3 days. This was a bit of a shock really, i knew i felt horrible but i dont think i realised i was that sick. The nurses & doctors were amazing, although i was told i was very sick i never felt unsafe & they were wonderful caring people (one night in particular was rough & my nurse was so lovely). We finally worked out that the canula where my insulin pump is attached to me was bent inside me meaning that i wasn't getting any insulin. As soon as we put a new one in within 3 hours i was back to having normal blood sugars, spent one more night in a normal ward & finally got out of there. I wont freak you out by posting any photos where you can see too may tubes etc (i had 6 canulas in my right arm) but here i am with Ben at the point where i was able to joke around a bit!
I guess there is something to take away from this experiance!
1. Take your health conditions seriously! I do, but its taught me that i need to keep a more diligent eye on my blood sugars even when life is busy.
2. Dont take your fully functioning body for granted! Look after yourself - there are plenty of people (some of whom who i saw in intensive care) who's bodys fail them & would do anything to be healthy.
3. TRAVEL INSURANCE. Get it! You never know what will happen to you when you are abroad! Had i not had it i would be in a world of trouble right now! Im guessing the bill from that 3 day stay would be in the 100's of thousands. The $200 or so you pay for travel insurance is well worth it.
The rest of the trip was awesome - we literally ate & shopped our way around - much more fun than this post! Ill be back tomorrow to show you the fun stuff!
