That Moment When
you Realize
You
Walked Through
The
Valley of the Shadow of Death
Death
Valley, San Diego and Arizona
March
2014
Maddie
12
Kier
10
Cora
7
I
think everyone has that “the time I got sick on vacation” story.
But few people have an “ I got sick on vacation” story like Cora.
Cora's experience is the type that makes time stands still and
every other life event is then judged as “before our trip to Death
Valley” or “after our trip to Death Valley”. In fact it is
disturbingly prophetic that on this occasion we had chosen Death
Valley as one of our destinations.
Cora
had started to show signs of being ill mere hours before our trip
began. I'd picked the kids up from “Friday School” at three. I
remember on the the way home I asked Cora if something had happened
at school because she was uncharacteristically grumpy. She
(grumpily) told me that no nothing had happened, and she was fine--
thank you very much! I left it at that, hopping that maybe she was
just a bit tired after a full day of school and her normal sunny
disposition would return by morning.
As
is typical with out spring trips, the weather was in charge of our
departure date and time. We had planned to leave on Saturday, but in
order to avoid a bit of weather, we instead headed for the airport
straight from the school.
Our
destination (Death Valley) lay to the west, and the incoming weather,
lay to the south. So our route the first night took us over the
mountains in a meandering sort of way as we avoided the tallest of
the peaks. We spent the night in Grand Junction and continued on the
next day. By morning, the clouds were starting to push in and we
again flew a circuitous route as we made our way to Las Vegas where
we met up with Bret, Dawn and Lance. They had managed to pick a
night when all but one room in all of Sin City was completely booked
up -- hard to believe that can happen given the number of huge
casinos there!
From
Las Vegas, we flew caravan style to Death Valley in California.
Death Valley is a bit odd for a National Park. For one thing it is
very remote. While most National Park are far from metropolitan
areas, Death Valley takes it to such an extreme that it is almost a
ghost town! Actually there are a number of ghost towns right in the
park. In fact we rented Jeeps and visiting them was a primary form
of entertainment during the few days we were there. In addition to
touring ghost towns, we also made the trek to see “The Racetrack”
where we watched rocks stand still, but wondered about the tracks
they had left in the dry cracked mud. (The mystery has since been
solved. Two brothers video taped the rocks, pushed by strong wings,
sliding across slippery muddy ice). And to help combat the high heat
in Death Valley, we made sure to enjoy some ice cream everyday. In
retrospect, ice cream was not such a good idea, but at the time it
seemed like the thing to do. We even got buzzed by some really low
flying fighter jets that appeared out of no where while practicing
military maneuvers in the air space over the desert.
All
the while Cora continued to be grumpy and tired. What's more she
started drinking ridiculous amounts of water, and consequently
needing to find bathrooms more and more frequently. At first we
joked that Cora was taking the signs in the bathroom that warned of
the importance of drinking water and the risk of dehydration too
seriously, but it was becoming clear something was not right. In
fact several times a night we would have to crawl out of the tent and
find the campground potties-- or eventually a bush or two. The one
bright side of this was that one night, as we stumbled back to the
tent in the dark, our flashlight beam shown bright on an adorable
desert Kangaroo Rat. He was about the size of a small guinea pig,
had big bright eyes, huge hind legs and a frizzy poof at the end of
his tail.
By
day three I was beginning to suspect Cora might have Diabetes. I had
taken an Anatomy and Physiology class at the the community college
the year before and the list of symptoms played through my head (in
Latin no less) like a checklist on “loop setting”: polydipsia,
polyuria, diabetes insipidus, diabetes mellitus.... But what my
medical terminology failed to give my was an understanding of just
how much danger my little girl was in. And so while I continued to
fret in the desert, far from medical help, I naively believed that we
could finish our trip and take Cora to the doctor's office when we
got home.
Stop
two on our multi-destination trek was San Diego. We briefly parted
ways with the Lowells. They headed to Catalina Island and we went
straight to San Diego.
The
flight into San Diego was quite an interesting contrast. In less
than 45 minutes we went from a flat dry desert, below sea level
elevations and a humidity of less the 25 percent, to climbing over a
snow covered mountain range, and then descending through a cloud bank
into the ocean side city of San Diego, where the humidity was near
100 percent.
Despite
having finished his instrument flight training more than a year
before this trip, it was Joel first actual instrument landing. Once
we crossed over the Laguna Mountains a thick layer of clouds hid the
valley making it impossible to tell if the city even existed beneath.
We had anticipated the clouds and Joel had opened an instrument
flight plan before we reached the mountain ridge. We continued to
fly above the clouds for about another 15 minutes. When it was time
to descend through the clouds both Air Traffic Control and the
airplane chose to test Joel's skills. The autopilot was having some
trouble maintaining a heading and then the Air traffic controller
weaved Joel all around the cloudy sky as he directed him through the
busy air space. But we popped out the bottom of the cloud layer
right above the runway and Joel made a beautifully smooth landing.
We
spent two days in San Diego. Without the dry heat of the desert to
contend with, Cora perked up a little. We went to the beach, found a
tide pool to explore and visited the Birch Aquarium at Scripps
Institution of Oceanography. The day before we left San Diego, we
met up with the Lowells at the San Diego Zoo with the single minded
purpose of seeing the Pandas. We have been to the free National Zoo
in Washington DC several times to see the famous (fabled?) pandas,
and every time the illusive pandas have managed to avoid us!
When
we met up with our friends, Bret asked us what we wanted to see
first. Joel quickly announced that the Shaklee Family had just spent
$250 to see Pandas, so we demanded to see Pandas! After finally
having achieved our greatest life goal we also saw several other
animals. Most notable were the precious and extremely lazy Koala
Bears.
Looking
back at the pictures it is painfully clear that Cora was indeed very
sick; she was pale and skinny. But she was also drinking less water
and visiting the bathroom less and I grabbed on to these as good
signs.
Our
next vacation stop was Yuma Arizona where Joel was going to join Bret
for part of a formation flying clinic. Cora's symptoms reemerged
that day and on the short 30 minute flight to Yuma Cora was both
begging for water and complaining about the lack of a potty on the
airplane, despite the fact that everyone had visited the restroom
moments before take off.
In
the morning Joel and Bret went flying while Dawn and I took the kids
to the Hotel pool. We had no transportation and really there was not
much else to do in Yuma Arizona. This activity led to a new stress!
Someone has failed to to turn off the overnight pump on the pool
cleaning system. The kids were playing a game of Marco Polo when
Kier got too close to the vent and the suction was strong enough that
it held Kier under water and against the wall for several seconds.
At first, when the kids ran over to tell us that “the pool had
sucked Kier in” we thought that they were over reacting to the
light current that is always present in a public swimming pool. Then
he turned around and we saw the 3 inch perfectly round deep purple
bruise already forming on Kier's back. With my heart in my throat,
we went to talk to management, who realized what had happened. They
turned off the pump, apologized several times and comped us for the
nights stay.
So,
between that and the fact that I had finally had a chance to google
the list of Latin words that were running an in ongoing loop in my
head, was more than a little shaky when we got into the shuttle to
head to the airport to meet Joel.
From
Yuma, we made the short jump to Phoenix where we were staying a at my
parent's vacation condo for a few days. I did wonder if we should
just head home. But Phoenix was a short ½-hour trip and home was
many hours away. Besides it was already late in the day.
The
next day things really went downhill. Cora was once again constantly
thirsty and in need of a bathroom. At lunch with some family
friends, Cora vomited. We said hasty good-byes and went back to the
condo where Cora took a long nap and I noticed her breathing become
shallow. I once again googled “Diabetes Onset” and finally came
across the article that convinced me it was time to act. This time,
at the top of the search list was the personal story of a mother
whose daughter ended up in Coma at type one diabetic onset. It was
easy to see reflections of Cora's symptoms in this families personal
account. Wordlessly, I handed the ipad to Joel. I don't think he
even finished the article before he was on the phone trying to figure
out where we needed to go to get help.
In
the end we didn't quiet get it right. We went to the first hospital
that we found and it turned out to be the hospital that specialized
in adult trauma. They didn't even have a pediatric doctor on staff!
This caused a little hiccup in treatment as Cora had to be
transferred to the Children's Hospital. Still the staff at this
hospital was wonderful. They got us back to see the Triage nurse
quickly. That conversation went something like this:
Nurse:”
so why did you come in tonight.”
Me:
“I think my daughter has diabetes.”
Nurse:
”Has she been diagnosed with diabetes.”
Me:
“No, that's why we are here.”
Nurse(already
grabbing a blood sugar meter): “What are her symptoms?”
Me:”
Well, she had been really thirsty” (nurse pokes Cora's finger and
squeezes out a drop of blood) “and going to the bathroom a lot”
(blood sugar monitor alarms) “and..” (nurse is already picking up
phone and dialing) “she vomited at lunch today, and-”
Nurse(into
the phone): “we have a pediatric type one diabetic onset. We need a
room and IV STAT.”
And
that was that. That was the moment our family “life clock” hit
reset; the moment we realized we had “walked through the valley of
the shadow death”.
The
next three days are a blur. Cora spent three day in pediatric ICU.
We learned the real information about diabetes. The stuff beyond
Latin words and symptoms of onset. We learned about glucose and
insulin and the risks of too much of each. We learned about counting
carbs and giving shots. Joel and I took turns sleeping at the
hospital and my parents flew in from Colorado to stay with the kids.
We
also had to figure out how to get everyone (including the airplane)
home. We decided we were not comfortable taking Cora in the
Saratoga. We would be flying over some remote areas and might not
have easy access to medical help. So Joel and Kier and Maddie flew
out in the Saratoga and Cora and I went by commercial airline. This
made for some stress of it's own. We literally ended up getting
discharged from the hospital with barely enough time to go straight
from the hospital to the airport. I worried about the process of
making it through security with the various needles and bottles of
insulin and juice boxes and glucagon pen. As it turned out this was
not a problem at all. Cora still had various hospital bands and
whatnot on so she was given special treatment including a personal
assistant who pushed her in a wheel chair all the way to the gate.
The
problem arose when we reached the gate and got ready for the lunch
that Joel had carefully packed and calculated and recalculated the
carbohydrate for. You see, we were discharged from the hospital with
the expectation that we would attend extensive training classes the
next day at our own Diabetes Center. So the hospital had just
trained me for the basics. They were careful to go over the
emergency procedures for what to do if her blood sugar dropped to
dangerously low levels-- but the forgot to instruct me about really
high levels. And when I pulled out the glucose meter for lunch it
registered a really high number. When I called the hospital, they
informed me that because Cora had already been discharged they could
not legally give advice as to what I should do. I frantically search
for the phone number for the Denver Diabetes Center. Eventually I
found it, but when I called I was informed that our assigned doctor
was on rounds at Children's Hospital-- he would call me back as soon
as he could. All the while the departure time was ticking nearer.
Fortunate for me the good doctor did indeed call me back within
minutes of my leaving a message. He calmly talked me down off that
wall and told me it was okay for Cora to eat, I would just need to
give an extra dose of insulin to bring the blood sugar down. This
sounded like a horrible idea to me-- I had visions of plummeting
blood sugar, convulsions and all the other horror I had heard of, all
happening in a airplane 30,000 feet in the air. But the doctor
seemed sure and he was right. We gave the shot, Cora ate her lunch,
and the short flight went smoothly. Once we arrived my mother in law
picked Cora up at the airport. The rest of the family had a rather
bumpy flight home, but made it home shortly after we did.
The
next day we attended classes to learn the ins and out out diabetes
care (including dealing with high blood sugar) and began learning to
live our new normal.
 |
| Cora, 3 days out of the hospital and much happier |
I'll be honest with
you; I am not one of those people who believe “every thing happens
for a reason”, but I do believe there are lessons we can take from
every thing that does happen to us. And I believe that everything
that happens to us changes us. And I also think that many of the
experiences we have had in the airplane—everything from engine
trouble to delayed departures and unplanned destinations-- are what
give us the fortitude to deal with the greatest emergencies in life.
