Luke's IV Glucose Tolerance Test

Well, I know that it has seemed like I have been posting alot about diabetes, but it seems right now that is what our world is consisting of. Anyway, today we went back to Temple to do a IV Glucose Tolerance Test on Luke. As most of you know, we were told two weeks after Emily was diagnosed with diabetes that Luke, too, had 2 out of the 4 antibodies for diabetes.

At that point which was a year ago, our current dr. wanted to perform an IV Glucose Tolerance Test on Luke to see how well his pancreas could tolerate LARGE amounts of glucose. Luke hated the test and it was extremely painful for him. They had to put an IV in each arm of his little body. They used one set IV's to push high levels of glucose into, while drawing out blood from the other set of IV's. He was only 4 at the time and hated every minute of it. It took Jeff laying on top of him to hold him down, while two nurses pushed the glucose and drew his blood, while I held his hands down. Needless to say, it was the worst thing he had every gone through and a very traumatic experience for him. Unfortunately, at that time, his pancreas did not respond as well as we had hoped. His little pancreas did not handle the large amounts of glucose well. It was explained to us that just meant that the onset of his diabetes would probably be sooner than later according to this doctor. He recommended we repeat the test again in about a year to see how his pancreas would respond. That doctor has thankfully moved on and our new dr left it up to Jeff and I as to whether or not we wanted to repeat the test again. After much thinking and planning, we decided to do it only if they would agree to put Luke asleep to do the test. We were not going to allow him to have to go through something like that if we was going to be awake. He has not forgotten about it and may not ever. Plus, Jeff and I did not want him to be so anxious about dr's, needles and shots. Especially, if for some unGodly reason he is to develop diabetes soon because his little world would be dealing with all of these things alot.

Well, the drs agreed that we could put him to sleep to do the procedure, but we would have to do it in the PICU in Temple because they did not have the capabilites to put him to sleep in just the drs office. It sounded extreme, but we did not care as long as he did not know what was going on during the procedure.

So, we left this morning at 6:45 to be in Temple by 8:45 for his appointment. The dr in charge of the PICU met us outside of the PICU unit and was perplexed as to why we were wanting to put him to sleep for this kind of procedure. We attempted to explain our last experience and told him we did not want him to go through that again. Plus, we emphasized that we were told that was why we were at the PICU in order to have the option of putting him to sleep. If we were just going to attempt all of this again without some sort of sedation, we could have just done all of this at the drs office. I don't think he was real pleased to be messing with us, but we had to do what would be best for our son. After discussing our range of options from doing nothing to giving him oral sedation of vercet (Sp?) to a shot that would completely knock him out, we deceided on the oral sedation of vercet. It was not going to really make him completely asleep, but it would just make him feel very relaxed and really not care what they were doing to him. So, the dr led us to a treatment room luckily not inside the PICU. I was nervous about seeing all of those very sick kids dealing with alot worse than what we were. :(

They hooked Luke up to all of the machines and the dr gave the medicine to Luke and told us he should start feeling it in about 15 - 20 minutes. Well, Luke never really fell asleep, but he was DEFINTILY relaxed. He was very silly acting and very talkative to the nurses. He was very intrigued by the little red light that was on the tip of his finger that measured his pulse. I think that was the medicine kicking in! :)

It takes two nurses to do the test and to start all of the IV's. They first tried starting the IV in his hand, but were unsuccessful and had to do them in his arms. Luke was definitely aware and even cried a little, but it was nothing like before. So, that was an answered prayer and a blessing. After the IV's were in place, they began the tests of pushing the glucose and drawing the blood. Again, Luke was very aware of what was going on, but just very relaxed through it all. He actually kept the nurses and Jeff and I laughing with all of the silly things we was saying. Here is a picture of him with all of the IV's in his arm. :(

And a picture of one of the nurses drawing the blood.

It makes me sad to look at it and think about what his little body had to go through. He is just too little to have to endure something like that. But all in all, it was a successful day and Luke did great! Praise God!

Anyway, we do not have any test results back yet. I think that we should get the first set back at the end of this week and the rest of them a few weeks later. So, please pray that it has not progressed any further or EVEN MAYBE HAS IMPROVED, which is a possibility! I know GOD CAN DO ANYTHING!