Holy Cow!

What a whirlwind the last 6 days have been. So, here is the whole story (it is kind of long, so bear with me). . . .

One important piece of the puzzle to know before telling the whole story is about 2 weeks ago at a regular check up it was determined that Bryce had not been growing for the last 6 months, so he had some blood work done and it was determined that he has very low Thyroid, Thyroid simulating hormone, and insulin-like growth factor 1 hormone.

Last Friday morning, we decided to call the pediatrician, Dr. Simmons, because Bryce had had a nasty stomach bug for about 2 weeks that did not seem to be getting any better and for about 2 days had not been able to keep even water down. So we call, and the nurse says we need to come in, and we make an appointment for 11:30. When we get there the doctor is back and forth about putting us in the hospital for dehydration for the stomach stuff, but we decide to get some blood work done, look at those numbers, and decide what to do after that. So he gets the draw done at the hospital and we come home and he goes down for a nap. About an hour later Dr. Simmons calls, sounding fairly urgent, and tells me that Bryce is certainly dehydrated, but the much more pressing issue is that his blood sugar is a 36 (normal is 90-110). He then tells me he is not sure how low it can go before Bryce will pass out, but I should wake him up immediately, and go straight to the hospital, and if he seems not able to stay awake stop to stop at the closest emergency room! So we drop the two older ones off at my mom's house (thank goodness for parents who live close by) and head down to UVRMC. We get there and he is immediately hooked to an IV and pumped full of fluid. So for 3 days (until Sunday at ~1:00) he was on the IV for the dehydration and also to keep his blood sugar stable. So they get the vomiting and bad diapers until control, his sugars seem to be stable, and we are discharged on Sunday, but with instruction from the pediatric endocrinologist at Primary Children's who will be seeing Bryce in about a week for the low Thyroid/growth-hormones to call back to UVRMC first thing Monday morning to schedule an MRI for that day to be read by the pediatric radiologist Monday night.


So I call on Monday morning @ 8:30 and we coordinate pediatric sedation and radiology for the MRI at 10:50. Again, the kids go to grandma's house, thinking that we would be back in a couple of hours. We head back down to UVRMC, but on the way there Bryce seems kind of out of it. So when we get there we meet the sedation people and I asked them just to check his sugars because he seemed to be acting strangely, they get him hooked to the IV for the sedation medicine and right before they start those drugs they check his sugar, which has fallen again down to 41. So they immediately call Dr. Simmons and pump him full of sugar fluid. His number shoots up to the mid 300s so they sedate him, he gets the MRI, and comes back to the waking up area. He seems kind of slow to wake, and while he is coming to he has a hard time keep his blood pressure up, and meanwhile they test his sugar again and it is already down to 99 in just about 1 hours time. So we are re-admitted to the hospital, taken back up to the pediatric ward and he is put back on observation. His blood pressure stabilizes and they are checking his blood sugar about every 4 hours (a poke in the foot or fingers every time). The numbers were all over the map, so Tuesday morning the doctors decide to test for Ketotic Hypoglycemia - testing involves getting all his numbers up to normal, drawing blood and urine (he got a catheter which was lots of fun and prompted an interesting discussion with the 4-year old on why Bryce was going tinkle in a bag instead of in the potty) for a series of tests, not giving him anything but water until the sugars drop to below 60, then drawing again to test and compare the insulin level in the blood (among some other things) when his numbers are normal, as compared to really low. So, staring at 11:00 Tuesday morning, they begin testing his blood every 30 minutes until it drops - which takes until 8:30 PM. Finally the number is low enough, so they do there stuff (keeping in mind that every possible vein in this kid, by this point, has been used and it is quickly becoming impossible to get what they need without trying 2, 3, even 4 times - they even talk about trying in his head!).




(Pediatrics has wagons that the kids can go for outings around the hospital in - he actually like this part of his stay)

So finally, this afternoon, they diagnosed Ketotic Hypoglycemia, and we now test his blood three times per day. If the number drops below certain levels we either get him some sugar (juice and such), or if it gets low enough and we can't get it to respond with juice and sweet things he goes back to the hospital. We hope this does not happen. On the bright side, kids usually grow out of this type of hypoglycemia. We just need to make sure that he is eating small amount and often.


He still has an appointment with the pediatric endocrinologist at Primary's to deal with the growth hormone and thyroid issues. We will keep everyone up to date - but for now we are just glad to be home together again.