A Lack of Education is Worse Than a Lack of Insulin

This morning, Jairo, Maria Fernanda a mother with a son with diabetes and I hit the road to the coast to organize for our long journey. Along the way, we picked up Sra. Rocio who has 2 boys with diabetes. She told of us another family who has a boy, 4 yrs old, who is having trouble with his diabetes and she thought his blood sugar might be high. So, we hurried over there and made a cold call visit.

We listened as the family told us that Leonardo always cries, doesn't feel well, has lost a lot of weight, is always thirsty, and always has to urinate. Sure signs that he has hyperglycemia. After explaining the objectives of the camp that leaves tomorrow at 4am and the necessity to have them educate themselves on how to better manage their child's condition, we tested Leonardo's blood sugar. His blood sugar was so high that the glucometer could not even read it. It just said in bold big letters "HIGH GLUCOSE, over 600". He was off the charts. We needed to do a correction and give him insulin to lower it immediately. But we continued to talk to the family to create that relationship. After we answered their many questions about insulin and calmed their fears that it isn't bad for Leonardo, they allowed us to correct him. We stressed the extreme negative consequences of having such a high blood sugar. I really was fearful for the kid that he might pass out into a coma at any second. We gave him 7 units of rapid insulin to bring him down assuming 1 unit for every 50. We didn't want to drop him down to a complete normal level since he probably is always high and we weren't sure how he would handle having a more normal blood sugar at once. Plus, I'm not a doctor, and we just wanted to get his level lower than what it was currently. His family actually has insulin, only the rapid one, but doesn't use it every often and only checks his blood sugar every few days. A lack of education is worse than a lack of insulin since they don't always use it.

After about an hour of passionate pleading on behalf of Maria Fernanda, the family agreed to bring the mom, the aunt and the child to camp tomorrow. We stressed that the week long camp is completely free including all medicine, food and accommodations in case that was a deterrent. I'm so, so glad they are coming. Leonardo is the child with the overalls in the photo. He is so skinny and desperately needs help. At camp we will have a program just for the parents to teach them skills to help their child. I know we can help them.