Just as a pre-warning, this post is rather triggering for me but also might be for others who have gone through some mentally scarring situations so if this post will cause you more damage, please do not read it!
So as I have mentioned in ‘My Relationship with Type 1 Diabetes’ blog post I went through a stage of being admitted to hospital several times a year with DKA due to a heavily negative association I had with diabetes. I absolutely hated my life with it and almost felt like being admitted to hospital was the reward.
For several years I pretty much always had a level of 1.0 ketones present due to the little amounts of insulin I took. I was really not very well at all!
I decided to go on a ski season from November 2017 to April 2018. Best 6 months of my life, it was an absolutely incredible experience and I wouldn’t change it for the world! I was placed in La Tania, Courchevel (one of the 3 valleys) – I am obviously going to be biased and say that this is the best ski resort ever! I have met so many incredible people there, one of them being Jake! We have now been together since 2018 and I would never have met him otherwise! But I was in a really dark place with my diabetes management, at the time I was on injection pens and was completing about 2 injections a day at most – 1 long acting and possibly 1 short acting. I think my average blood sugars in this time was about 18mmol – extremely high!
It also didn’t help I realised in March 2018 that I was running out of insulin, my parents were coming out at the end of March with more insulin so I started to ration the amount I was having so I didn’t fall short as I couldn’t afford to buy any.
I was too focused on having fun and diabetes didn’t fit into my routine of starting work at 6am, getting onto the slopes for 9am and going out every single night. It was not the healthiest lifestyle! But I developed a knee injury and after jumping down some stairs on a night out, I tore my ligament in my knee (MCL). I was put on some very strong painkillers with a big brace and crutches which would cause me to zone out quite regularly. I forgot quite a few injections which caused my blood sugars to be extremely high all of the time. I started being sick which I put down to the painkillers I was put on, I couldn’t keep any food or drink down despite how unbelievably thirsty I was. I wasn’t hungry but my friends made sure I was eating something which inevitably came straight back up again.
Diabetes didn’t fit into my routine
I had an early flight home due to being on crutches, it was on 15th April 2018 at 8am from Geneva Airport. The night before the flight home I ordered a diet coke from the bar, I cannot even begin to tell you the discomfort I was in from heart burn. I has sipping on my diet coke and then gulping down milk as the acidity of the diet coke was causing havoc in my body. I was concern at this but again just put it down to the painkillers.
I woke up at 5am in the morning and had a sip of water, within 5 minutes I was back to vomiting again. Literally couldn’t stop. I had to take a bucket with me on the bus to be sick in. We stopped in a service station so I could be sick and I think I also threw up by the side of the motorway. I was in a really bad way.
So anyway we arrive at the airport, I now have 1 hour before my flight departs but I have paid for the disabled access thing as I couldn’t walk, I was left waiting there for over 40 minutes – my flights bag drop has now closed due to the airports ineptitude (whilst I am just throwing up in my bucket as well). They tell me that I have missed my flight which I was quite angry about as that was not my fault, no one came over to help me so that wasn’t my problem. I then wasn’t allowed onto the next flight as I had to have 2 available seats to rest my leg on. Honestly what a made up rule! They then said I had to pay over £300 for the next flight which I didn’t even have £100 in my account so I was in some kind of complete melt down about. Crying on the phone to mum very conscious I am feeling like I am floating almost, feeling completely light headed and very wobbly.
The airport then take me to their entirely hospital ward due to me being constantly sick, like every 5 minutes, it was just water and bile coming up at this point. I told them that I was a Type 1 Diabetic so they luckily checked my ketones which came in at over 7.6.
My ketones came in at over 7.6
Now the details past this point become very hazy so bare with me!
They were not allowing me to have a drink at all of any kind even though I was SO thirsty, as I’m sure you all understand, so I looked myself in the toilet so I could drink water from the tap. Obviously this came straight back up as my internal organs had already begun shutting down due to being in DKA. The staff had already called the ambulance from Geneva hospital. They delayed all flights so the ambulance could reach my location, I was loaded in and a drip inserted. I’m not sure what was in there but I presume insulin and water.
This is when the hallucinations started, I was imagining other people where with me and I was talking to them. So I was blue-lit to the hospital where they checked my details, insurance etc. I was in desperate need for the toilet, but I couldn’t find anyone so I went to stand up to walk to the toilet but I had gotten so weak that I just collapsed onto the floor.
Next thing I know, I am in RESUS. Just me in this room with about 4 drips in my arms, about 7 nurses and doctors all trying their absolute hardest to keep me alive. I had given them permission to get everything they needed form my bags, i.e. my phone and details etc. I had fallen into several comas during my long stint in RESUS and every time I would come back around I was quizzed on questions such as what’s my name, where am I from, what have I been up to etc so they could check for brain damage.
The doctors had phones my parents and they were both now driving frantically to get to me in Switzerland from the UK, with the doctors telling them “its okay, we think we have done enough that she isn’t going to die now”, all mum and dad could do was hope that it was lost in translation.
I phoned several of my friends, I have no idea what was said to them as I was so out of it on the drugs being used to save my life.
After RESUS I was then moved into a 3 person ward like ITU but more serious, where I stayed for 3 days. I was not allowed to get out of bed as I was so weak. I was lifted up and a potty was placed in the bed if I wanted to go to the toilet as I was not trusted to walk without falling over. My parents arrived at some point in the night and I think were shocked by the amount of tubes coming out of me but I don’t think they were allowed to stay very long due to arriving in the night.
The doctors tried to administer a tube into my wrist to make it easier to extract blood but my veins had all failed and kept on collapsing due to the amount of work that had occurred in them. It was absolutely frightening.
Even after coming home, I was very poorly for such a long time afterwards. This experience will always haunt me and I still have flash backs to this day. Whenever I hear sirens all I think of is how poorly I was in the back of the ambulance with my hallucinations. It was terrifying.
I will forever be grateful to the staff who managed to keep me alive in the Geneva Hospital, I want to write them a letter of thanks because without the amazing work they performed that day, I wouldn’t be here today. If I was allowed onto the plane, I wouldn’t have made it back to the UK before passing away. What a terrifying thought.
This experience has shown to me that I am here on this planet for a reason, I have a purpose and I need to fulfil it. Since then I have taken my diabetes seriously, my HB1AC has lowered from 130mmol+ to 42mmol which for me is unbelievably.
I hope in sharing my traumatic experiences, other people reading it who feel in a similar situation can get help sooner and avoid going through something that scary as they may not be as fortunate as I was. If you are severely unhappy with having diabetes, are missing injections etc, please speak to someone, please reach out whether that is to me, your friends, family, clinicians or a psychologist. People are they to help you and trust me, life will get better!
Let me know in the comments your worst DKA experience or if you have had something similar!
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Blog of a Type 1 