Saturday Night in the ICU ROCKS (not really)

It’s been a good news, bad news 24 hours. I went to Huntsman Cancer Institute to get my metabolic panel done again, still trying to get in to the CDK trial at Georgetown. Well, my liver enzymes are finally low enough for me to get in. But Terry called to alert me that my blood glucose level was high. Not just high, stratospheric. It was 734. Normal is around 100. Dr Giaccone figured there was an error in the lab or in the transcribing of numbers. My number couldn’t possibly be that high. He said, “You’d be dead.”Then, he saw the actual read-out: “Go to the ER.” I thought about delaying this visit; I was scheduled to volunteer with a ski lesson at the National Ability Center, first one of the season. But then I realized that doing my lesson would put me at the Emergency Room at 4pm, right when the lifts close and the skiers go to the hospital to get their parts fixed. I sadly canceled my lesson and went to the hospital. Good call.

The doc at the ER rechecked my blood sugar level, and it was as advertised. In fact, in the next few minutes, it jumped up over 800. I’m having a hyperglycemic episode. How bad was it? I should have been in a coma. The nurse said it was a good thing I came in, because people go to sleep in this condition and don’t wake up. How ridiculous would it have been, after all I’ve been through, to be killed by blood sugar. It’s ok to laugh.

The folks in the ER hooked me up to 3 bags of saline, took an Xray, did blood analysis, and sent me up to the ICU, where I am right now. I also got a few hours of an insulin drip, which worked pretty fast to bring the number down. In fact, just as the ER doctor said might happen, my blood glucose level dropped to 53, which led to a full body sweat and a bit of dizzy and her friend, woozy. Nothing apple juice and syrup in my IV couldn’t fix. My electrolytes are a bit wacked out, too. I had a bit of  hypernatremia.I had drank (drunk?) so much water I’d diluted my Potassium, Magnesium, etc. etc. So I have been taking supplements of that, too. I’m now stable, but I’m still here til at least tomorrow.

I remember months ago that Dr G talked about the Keytruda possibly sending patients into autoimmune disease, MS, Diabetes, Lupus, Diabetes, Arthritis, Diabetes. It was in the “hardly ever happens to anyone” list of potential side effects. I should have bought a lottery ticket (if I didn’t live in Utah, where all we have are “opportunity drawings”). Thinking back, I had all the Diabetes symptoms that I have treated in my cat. Inordinate amounts of drinking and peeing. Crazy thirst. Blurry (ok, blurrier) vision. Uncontrollable weight loss (down 10 pounds, thank you very much. I don’t recommend it.). Dry mouth and throat.

Merck says a reaction this severe to the Keytruda is extremely rare. Dr G has never seen it. My pancreas basically walked out on the job. Now, we treat the hyperglycemia and hope that it’s temporary and that my pancreas gets back on the line. It is a little worrisome that the condition continued to get worse so long after I stopped taking the drug. But the ER doc said that once the pancreas stops working, the hyperglycemia gets worse and worse. It doesn’t get better without intervention. Today’s intervention was a good one; it came before I crashed and burned. I was in LA all last week on a freelance producer shoot for Ivanhoe Broadcast News. Crashing and burning last week would not have been awesome.

So, yet another detour on my road. Hopefully, it’s more like a cloverleaf and I’ll loop back around to Georgetown, where I can finally start that CDK trial soon. One skill I am honing at every turn these days is flexibility. Not making expectations because the road keeps changing direction. I am comfortable with that and getting better at going with the flow, as long as the flow is going in the general direction I want it to go. I still have my focus on this next trial. And I’ll get there. Onward. Circuitously.

From Venice Beach, with love. You’d never know my blood sugar was trying to kill me.