By Sheila Dwyer, MedTech1 Staff
June 5, 1999, started like any other day for nine-year-old Bryce Huddleston. Neither he nor his family suspected that, in a moment, their lives would change, and Bryce would have to face life with diabetes.
Bryce’s initiation into the world of diabetes mellitus was a rough one. Without prior warning, Bryce developed diabetes ketoacidosis (DKA), a condition that occurs when a person’s blood glucose level reaches an excessively high level. Ketoacidosis is essentially untreated hyperglycemia (high blood sugar) and can result in coma or death.
That day in June, Bryce was admitted to University Medical Center in Las Vegas for diabetes mellitus with DKA complications. Doctors began therapy to correct his blood glucose levels, and Bryce seemed to be recovering. The next morning, however, he woke up in the hospital and became aggressive. Shortly after, he fell into a coma. He had developed cerebral edema, or excess fluid in the brain, a life-threatening condition that strikes without warning.
Doctors informed Bryce’s parents that cerebral edema complicating DKA has a mortality rate of approximately 90 percent. The first 24 hours were crucial for Bryce, and he fought to stay alive. Over the next couple of weeks, doctors told his family that swelling and pressure in his brain, coupled with an aneurysm at the base of the brain, might have caused lifelong damage. Even if Bryce came out of the coma, there was a chance that he would never be able to walk, eat, or breathe on his own.
At the end of June, Bryce slowly began to respond to touch and want to get out of bed. Not only was he able to get out of bed, but he was also in better shape physically than his medical team had imagined. While he was in the hospital, Bryce relearned to walk, talk, and eat. He still has some difficulty writing, but can express himself well orally.
Even after Bryce cleared a more extreme health hurdle than people much older than him, he had to learn at age nine how to live with a chronic condition. With the support of his parents, “Bryce is open about everything,” says his mother, Kellie Huddleston.
The family found that top-of-the-line diabetes supplies, such as syringes, were difficult to obtain from their insurance company after Bryce was discharged from the hospital. Because of his unusual complications, the family wanted Bryce to be as comfortable as possible with his disorder. He is especially sensitive to a syringe piercing his skin, so the insurance company agreed that he should use brand-name, fine syringes.
Bryce also began using an insulin pump, which administers a bolus of insulin to him at his prompt. He has become adept at administering all of his diabetes accessories except for the catheter, which his parents insert for him. He tracks the amount of carbohydrates that he eats so he knows how much insulin to give himself.
“He is not a cheater. If he wants that Popsicle, he will say, ‘Can I have that Popsicle? I know it is worth (this much) but I really want it,’” his mother says. “And we will say, ‘Okay, but no cheating for the rest of the week.’ So we will calculate how many carbohydrates it has, and he gets it.”
Bryce knows that he has to work to maintain his blood sugar level. Because he sustained nerve damage due to the cerebral edema, he is on the alert for numbers that are too low or too high. According to his mother, every day Bryce learns something new. She admits that they have made mistakes, including an incident at a shopping mall’s free candy table. “He asked the lady, ‘Oh, is this free?’,” Kellie says. “And she said, ‘Yes.’ Bryce thought she meant sugar-free. I didn’t even have a chance (to stop him from eating it). I had to tell him, ‘This is the definition of our free, this is the definition of their free.’ It was a learning experience for him and me.”
Bryce is homeschooled now because his blood sugar levels need to be monitored constantly. His parents intend to send him back to school when they feel they have gotten his routine under control. He leads an active life, despite the challenges that he faced less than two years ago. He attends a chess club with his classmates and visits them frequently at school.
Most impressively, he is willing to talk about diabetes with the fifth grade class he is supposed to be with in school. He brought his glucose monitor, needles, and syringes to the classroom to demystify diabetes. Bryce’s openness can be attributed to the support of his family, who are happy just to know that Bryce is around to educate people about living well with diabetes.
For more information on diabetes care accessories, visit www.bd.com.
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