Father protects 7-year old t1 daughter, severely hypo, from emergency room administration of insulin

Parenting a D-Child
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Scary “bad doctor” story with a happy ending.

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Scary situation. I would have probably ended up being arrested…

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I have a bit of self control… but in that situation I probably would have become “aggressive”.

And another reminder to keep glucagon at home :slight_smile:

When my kid was in the hospital after diagnoses I did a lot of tongue biting. When the nurse in the morning was giving humalog when she should have been giving levemir I politely corrected her without being too aggressive :blush: It is a fine line though.

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My husband and I have had a hell of a time getting insulin in hospitals when I was actually needing it. He always talks about turning into “John Q”…I never saw the movie, but I think I get his general gist.

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I think everyone here knows how I would have handled this situation. Where my kids lives are concerned, I’ll do anything and everything required to protect them…even if that lands me in jail. I have little patience for ignorance.

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Something does not sound right with this story.

I am of course suspicious of everything I read. Sorry, just my nature. :thinking:

The story does not say where they live, so I guess anything is possible. And the names are changed.

But when EMT’s get called to a house because someone has low BG, the first thing they do is check your BG.

If you say, “She’s a diabetic and has low blood sugar” when they arrive, I don’t think they bundle you “onto a stretcher” and drive away.

If you have low BG, they give you glucagon or D50, which is 50% dextrose in a saline solution.

D50 is the preferred method, in case your liver glycogen is depleted, which means glucagon would not work. Also, D50 is relatively cheap.

Maybe she lives in some area with lousy EMT’s, or in a different country.

But if you call 911, and tell them “Low blood sugar”, I find this hard to believe:

The EMTs arrive, bundle Jessica onto a stretcher, and race her to the community hospital.

I have never called 911 for myself, so I don’t know how that conversation goes. But I have woken up to an IV in my arm, still in my house.

I have not woken up to find I was in an ambulance, or hospital. Never.

I have had many experiences with EMT’s in my diabetic career. Fortunately it has been a while.

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A friendly reminder that if you take (or give someone) glucagon in a situation like this, you need to eventually replenish the liver’s glycogen stores by eating carbs. Otherwise you may get another low as your body tries to suck your blood sugar to refill your liver.

I was away on holidays, and my son was vomiting and slightly low so my wife had her first try of microdosing glucagon to raise his BG. She did a good job and even got some juice/carbs a few hours later so the liver was topped up.

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And that is a good point… why wait to treat a low? Although the hospital was nearby.

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Thanks for that. I’m no longer as skeptical as I should be, and you’re right that this story has all the earmarks of one of those viral “gee aint it awful” stories. I just now checked snopes and didn’t find anything about it, so to my relief it appears that this story is not widely known to be false.

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Perhaps that’s because this story is not widely known, period. It appears only on that site, and no variation of key-word searches I could think up found any similar story.

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