To have rushed to the school or am I a neurotic parent??

[WanderingAroundandAround]

DS is 13 and was diagnosed with Type I diabetes 18 months ago. He manages it well in general but regularly ignores low blood sugars until he’s in a hypo. He has a blood sugar monitor and we try to drill into him to treat (with glucose) if he’s going towards a low rather than wait until he’s in one as obviously he feels like crap and it can cause long term effects if he regularly hypos.

Today I got a notification from his monitor that he was in a low and going further down, he also still had a couple of units of insulin onboard. I normally keep checking to make sure he’s treated it and is starting to go up again but he continued going down to 2.7 which is dangerously low. Lowest should be 4. I called the school to ask them to check he’s treated it and make sure he eats a decent amount to counteract the insulin he still had inside him.

They said they’d get him. He continued going down to 2.2 15 minutes later (lowest he’s ever been) at which point I panicked, jumped into car and drive to school with his glycogen injection (school have one but have had it since diagnosis and didn’t know if it was mislaid or whatever), ready to inject as expecting to have to call 999 and DS unconscious!

Got to Reception and said why I was there. The monitor was registering DS as off the scale low at that point. DH had called in as well from work as we were both panicking! Receptionist clearly raised her eyebrows as if to say that I was overreacting. I said she didn’t need to raise her eyebrows as it was a life threatening emergency. She denied doing it and said she was sorry if I thought she had. Kind of thinking now was I was rude but I was very stressed and know how serious it is, a lot of people don’t.

DS then came out with medical lady, who was a bit WTF, and he was laughing and saying I’m fine and very embarrassed saying why did you come to school! Looks like his monitor was wrong which is rare. Medical lady said it was natural that I was a bit anxious as still getting to grips with diagnosis. We have got to grips with it but he was in a life threatening hypo according to his monitor! I think I was right to be extremely worried.

Left feeling rather embarrassed and like I will judged as a neurotic mother and as if I caused a bit of an unnecessary kerfuffle with the receptionist.

I have never gone into school before because DS has gone into a low. Only called once before as he was very high for a long period.

Was I being neurotic? WWYD in that situation.

You sound like a wonderful parent. You absolutely did the right thing.

He's a child. He's in the process of growing up.

Hope you were perfect at 13. Doubt it.

I'm guessing OH can relax only because he knows your worrying is his safety net.

Anyone that would tinkle laugh at me and tell me it’s ok to feel anxious about my child with a blood sugar of 2 would get a slap in the chops.

I’ve told this before on mumsnet but I once had a routine blood test and the results came back with a blood sugar of 2. They couldn’t get hold of me by phone so they dispatched an out of hours doctor to my house to check I wasn’t comatose. I’ve literally never heard of that before but he impressed upon me how very serious it all was and how unwell I could have been - and I would have no idea. I felt fine .

A child getting to grips with diabetes and having rapidly low results that kept falling - don’t let anyone ever tell you that you are overreacting. Better to check and be proved wrong than assume it’s ok and be proved wrong.

You absolutely did the right thing. It was very serious. I would do the same and I wouldn’t question myself in the slightest.

I think you should raise a question with his diabetes nurse about training for school staff to raise their awareness. The receptionist’s attitude was very alarming.

@WanderingAroundandAround would it help if he set the notification for his blood monitor to a different vibration pattern to normal notifications so he's not checking it unnecessarily but agree with him he HAS to check if that pattern goes off? He does need to be monitoring it better at 13 tbh and that's coming from a youth worker who cares for a lot of T1 teens

You did the right thing. Hopefully the embarrassment of parents visiting every time he goes low will spur him to be more responsible.

You don’t need to apologise OP. You thought your child was in danger, what parent wouldn’t do the same?

School staff should have been much kinder and understanding imo.

Haven’t read the whole thread but as a fellow mother to a type 1, you did what I would have done too. Sometimes technology fails and ours seems to be failing a lot at the mo.

You did absolutely nothing wrong. Anyone who makes you feel otherwise is simply displaying pure ignorance

You absolutely did the right thing and don't let anyone gaslight you into feeling like you overreacted because if it happens again you will need to do the same thing.

Please get that monitor fixed asap! I lost a family friend due to a broken monitor (only it was the other way round - it said he was fine when he wasn't).

I’m guessing you have zero experience of T1 diabetes. It really doesn’t take long to go from fairly ok to unconscious and the high tech gadgetry monitoring the situation can go faulty. 🤷🏻‍♀️

I recently had to phone 999 when my friend started to act weirdly at our craft group. Luckily, I knew she was T1 and guessed she was very low. Her monitor wasn’t working properly and the paramedic took a reading and it was under 2. The paramedics said I did the right thing acting so quickly, and potentially saved her life.

It’s always best to err on the side of caution with T1 diabetes!

I heard the comedian Ed Gamble talking about going through a phase of deliberately not monitoring his diabetes properly as a form of teenage rebellion. Apparently it's not uncommon. I would have been worried too, OP.

From their point of view, you called, they went into class and got him, by which point you were already screeching up in the car park, despite the fact they'd probably been with him for ten minutes by this point and making sure he was OK, giving him a chance to check in privacy/have snacks/whatever.

It would have been noticed in class if he were going low (or high) - and then his plan should say that he isn't allowed to leave class on his own, but has to go with a friend - but he needs to have his alarms on so that the teacher can be alerted quickly if there is an issue.

When it's your child, it feels different, but when it's one child of nine in school that they see regularly, it's a lot less panic and more adopting the 'nothing to worry about, need to check, though' face with an occasional 'I'm not happy about this'.

She's said he has an exemption, but he feels self conscious taking his phone out since the ban even though he is allowed.

@WanderingAroundandAround

Firstly you did exactly the right thing. Fuck what the div on reception thinks.

it may focus DS's mind on not ignoring his alarms! No bad thing.

the teachers need to be told to stop making such an issue out of it, there's no need to stop & make a point of it (like you do when they don't have an exception).

I get using his phone is awkward for him,

BUT WTAF won't he wear his Watch?? That's about where I'd lose my patience with him.

he only 13 & diabetes IS hard to come to terms with. I'm 55 & still feel rebellious and fucked iff with it!! Knowing it's 'for life ' IS really hard to accept.

How did he come to be with the medical staff member?

threaten to go down to school daily to check what he's eating for lunch if he doesn't wear his watch & respond to the alarms!!

@NeverDropYourMooncup

It would have been noticed in class if he were going low (or high)

Are you quite sure about that?

My friend’s digital monitor wasn’t working properly because it had had an update overnight which was faulty but no-one had realised, least of all, my friend who’s had T1 since she was 9yrs old. She’s mid 50’s now.

I only noticed because she started to say some odd things and I know her very well. If she’d been at the class on her own, she could easily have become very unwell before anyone else realised that something was wrong. ☹️

My 15 yo dd has a medical condition. She is one of those people, who doesn’t want to be different at all from anyone else to the extreme, clothes, shoes etc. She stopped coping with being different when she started secondary school and up to this point, teachers were there for her in primary, whereas she was now expected to look after herself to a greater degree.

It all came to a head last year and I was beside myself worried as she was going out with people she didn’t know and wouldn’t mention it. God knows how they’d have handled it if something happened because they may think for a minute or two that she had died.

The thing, which clinched it for me was getting dd’s friends to talk to her about the seriousness of letting people know she has this medical condition. I know your ds is younger but I thought I’d let you know this worked for us after years of me trying.

In any case, yanbu at all and I am really glad your ds is ok.

I would say that you have no idea if the receptionist raised her eyes because she thought you were overreacting, or because she was surprised to see you there, or she just does that anyway. Telling her not to raise her eyes was very rude of you.
Moving forward, I would advise that a first aider at school also has access to your DSs app whilst he's on site at school so that they can respond to changes promptly. This is what we’ve set up in my school. Plus all staff know why the pupil has her phone out in lessons. I can be teaching and the FA will suddenly appear in class to sort out the pupil. It works very well.
Have you completed a risk assessment and health Care plan with the school? We get some additional funding from the LA to pay towards the first aider too.

42 year old here and my mum still panics at my readings! I've had some faulty monitors too which doesn't help and even resulted in a temporary license suspension last year 🤦🏻‍♀️.
People just don't get diabetes, let them roll their eyes, let them have their opinions. Better to turn upto a son who's fine than ignore and potentially end up with a son in a life threatening situation.

You absolutely did the right thing - acting on information you were receiving

I'd have done the same.
And maybe the thought of his parents coming to school will make your DS take hypos a bit more seriously.

I don’t think you were unreasonable at all. Your son needs to take a bit more responsibility. I’d suggest writing a letter to school, if the monitor was correct that would have been an emergency and they sound very blasé about it

Yes, because when I was designated first aider/contact point for students with a medical condition, I'd be summoned by staff or kids concerned about their friends - or they'd be escorted down with a 'the monitor hasn't gone off but...' and sometimes they'd be high, rather than low, but it was very noticeable. There's also the register section that indicates a medical condition & details, along with alerts with photos in private staff areas, so nobody could ever say 'well, how was I supposed to know he's diabetic?'.

@Itslegitimatesalvage he's 13, he's in the process of growing up. Getting a diagnosis doesn't instantly make someone an adult.

diabetes is a mind fuck for an adult, let alone a young teenager (worst time to get the diagnosis).

o would threaten to sit in his classes with him if he doesn't wear his watch & respond to his alarms.

I'm more than prepared to be the embarrassing Mum when necessary.