Road Trip with Insulin

I've been so over bus rides for awhile now, but I thought I might enjoy the 14 hr bus trip from Santa Elena on the coast to Quito with a bus full of kids. The 4am departure time did not agree with my internal clock, but I was awake and ready for the adventure. Jairo and I bought and brought our supplies the day before; honey and coke for emergencies in case the kids blood sugar goes low on the trip, glucagons, insulin, syringes, alcohol to clean, lancets, glucometers, cotton, snacks, fruit, food, water empty plastic bottles for the syringes, and our energy for the long trip.

At 4am we collected a few parents, one of whom brought her newborn, and a few kids. We then drove off and picked up awaiting parents alongside the road. Once we had collected the kids from the Santa Elena group, 7 in total, we checked their glycemias. Leonardo's was still high at 485 and so we corrected him again on the bus. All the kids from Santa Elena were young ones ranging from 3 yrs old to 7 and all came with their parents to camp. At 7:20am, we made it to Guayaquil where we picked up the rest of the crew. Another 7 kids joined up including Juan Carlos and Ayisha and her dad.

During our road trip, we checked glycemias along the way. Arturo, a 25 yr old who has had diabetes for 2 years, had a high glycemia, over 400, but he didn't want to correct for it. He's been living with diabetes and never uses insulin only when forced to at the hospital when he's really sick. I didn't realize his history until after I made him inject himself. We told him that these 5 year olds on the bus can inject themselves and so if they can, he can learn too. He watched Francesco, a 7 yr old boy inject himself and then he followed suit. Jairo helped him a bit by grabbing some fat in his arm for the needle. He did ok with the whole process but winced at the sight of the needle.
During the lunch break, we stopped to check glycemias and distribute insulin. Unfortunately, many of the kids had fallen low at this point and so Jairo, Maria Fernanda and I had to distribute coke to half the group to get their levels up. One kid was really low at 50 and of course Jairo was low at 45. Jairo always seems to overexert himself and drop and so despite his monitor status, I'm always asking him what his blood sugar is to remind him to check himself.

Leonardo and Yannina, 3 yrs old, especially hated the shots and screamed the entire time until it was over. Checking blood sugar is quite the ordeal too since both hate having their blood sugar checked and crunch up their fingers to prevent the prick. Despite the screaming and wiggling kids, we managed to take care of them both. Jairo was great with Leonardo and made him watch as Jairo checked his own blood sugar and injected insulin into himself to help Leonardo understand that it isn't painful and there's no need to scream.

After the lunch time lows, the rest of the 14 hour road trip went a little smoother. Although, we spent the last hour circling around the city trying to find the camp site. I became so car sick from this last hour that immediately when we arrived, I went to the bathroom and threw up. All the color had drained from my face and everyone thought I looked quite pale and on my death bed. I didn't realize at the time, that this might be a warning sign of my health for the coming week.