When it Rains, It Pours...

I can do nothing but apologize for my long silence here!

Em and I left Uganda on the 1st of March-- Em for home, me for England. I had a lovely few days with my handsome London man, meeting up with my upcoming ministry team in Birmingham (and letting them meet him!), and seeing some friends. When I arrived back in Sweden a week and a day ago, I instantly came down ill with an awful cold but pressed on and went back to work Monday morning. On Wednesday, due to some kind of malfunction in an accessory of my insulin pump, my blood sugars sky-rocketed to the point of my body starting to go into shock. I was at work and desperately rang everyone I knew with a car to help me get home to my insulin syringes which are an emergency backup if something's up with the pump. The Lord sent along friends just in time, and one of them who's never given an injection before was able to give me a jab while the other supported me to keep from falling over while I threw up repeatedly... Nice. They stayed with me til I was feeling more myself again. And I am so very thankful for how He provides!

I went back to work the next day but could only manage to stay half a day for feeling so very weak and ill, not an uncommon after-effect of having an extreme high blood sugar like I had suffered the day before. I worked at getting my blood sugars stabilized and tried not to be worried as instead of feeling better, I only grew worse throughout the day. Too nauseous to eat since about Tuesday, I drank as much water as possible and tried to keep little bits of food down. I was reading up about what to do after the Diabetic shock I had had, and found I had all the symptoms of Diabetic Ketoacidosis, which can become very fatal very quickly. I tried not to panic and worked on regulating my blood sugar numbers. By 6pm thursday night, I started having very good, regular blood sugar readings, and they remained that way as I checked every hour the rest of the evening, yet I grew sicker. And more and more frightened... Afraid of the costs of visiting a foreign Emergency Room, I wanted to be absolutely sure that my body wasn't getting better with the regulated blood sugar numbers before I went in, so decided that if I still felt so awful by tomorrow (friday), I would go in and see a doctor, but I hoped for a turn in my health in the night.

It only got worse.

By 1:30am I was unable to sleep for the most horrific pain in my lower back, a racing heart, and difficulty breathing, on top of the nausea, headache, weakness, and dizziness that had been with me for a few days now. I prayed from 1:30 to 3:30 about what to do, extremely disoriented and just plain frightened. Finally, at 3:30, I knocked on my friend Teri-Anne's door and woke her to say I thought I needed to go to the hospital. This woman is amazing. She popped out of bed, totally calm, speaking in soothing tones. It had begun to snow in the night and she felt scared to drive in it, but didn't let her worry betray her.


By 4am, we were at the emergency room of Sahlgrenska, the main hospital here in Gothenburg. They got me on a stretcher and hooked me up to a heart monitor by about 6 huge tubes. Weird. They drew blood, they took down as much information of my condition as I could tell them through short, rapid breaths (with T-A interpreting in Swedish where needed), they inserted an IV, then they wheeled me into an observation room. And we waited. And we waited. I was totally impatient, in extreme pain, having trouble breathing, and gagging with nothing to vomit. Finally, about 6:00, a doctor came and drew some blood from an artery in my inner wrist (Ouch! I'm still bruised and tender there!) to check for Acidosis in my blood. They hooked me up to an IV drip (so strange to be on!) of electrolytes and gave me some pain killers. And we waited some more (so strange to lie there watching the drip and listening to everyone around you carrying on in a foreign language...). Teri-Anne never left my side, and I cannot tell you how much it meant to have her there. She even canceled her day of work and her lovely husband Anders took the kids to school by public bus since we had the car!

We were in the ER til noon. After being on the drip for awhile, I began to breathe more easily. My mouth was no longer dry for the first time in days. The pain killers took the back pain away. They took a urine test and the very kind doctor came to tell us that it is not Ketoacidosis, that every test came back negative (praise the Lord!) and that I seem to have a viral infection which has just been aggravated by the high blood sugar shock I had on Wednesday which dehydrated me. As I have felt so ill and haven't been able to eat properly, I haven't been able to get re-hydrated after the shock. And most of the pain and the ill-as-death feeling comes from being so dehydrated! So, a liter of electrolyte drip later, I was able to go home and crawl into bed for as many days as it takes to be well again...

And so, here I am. My biggest challenge is trying to eat. Blah... Not being able to eat can be a bit of a problem when you're Diabetic and have to keep your blood sugar numbers in just the right range-- which involves an intricate dance of insulin and diet! I appreciate any prayers you have to offer...

It has been terrifying to be so very ill, and with the complications of the Diabetes, and so far from home. I think it's perhaps safe to say that I haven't been so scared for my health as I have these last few treacherous days. But God is so good to me in my friends. Teri-Anne was a total hero that night, and even now watches over me carefully as I try to recover but remain very very ill. He even had a couple of friends who adamantly don't believe in Him praying for me when I went into hospital :) And the way Mike and Brona dropped everything to come and literally rescue me on Wednesday when I was going into Diabetic shock. I know it is all from Him. And He touches my heart with how He surrounds me with His goodness. And just imagine if this would have happened while in Africa (which it easily could have done, as I was using the same insulin pump accessories there!)??

I do hope to write a final post on my months in Africa soon... Just after I'm well...
For now, I thank each of you who have been praying for me!! And I sign off to sleep...
Loving you. Loving Him. And healing,
Leah