DKA - Diabetic Ketoacidosis

DKA is a nasty complaint that John suffers from once or twice a year, and it always results in a trip to  hospital. My simple understanding of it is that his blood starts to turn into something akin to nail polish remover, which isn't good for your major organs

For John we normally know he is spiralling into DKA because he throws up and just keeps throwing up, getting weaker and weaker. The first time we thought it was a stomach bug and nearly left it too late. We got to hospital in time for him to collapse in reception.

DKA is normally caused by an infection in his body, but they can't always find an obvious cause, at which point they normally accuse John of being an alcoholic (- is he you ask - that I think is a topic for a blog on it's own, because the answer is neither yes or no).

So normally John starts vomiting and we decide it is going on too long so  I drive him to the hospital. Next is the trick of making it through triage in a timely-ish manner, because the medical staff at the local hospital are brilliant and wonderful, but they can't believe that the patient might know what is wrong with them without a barrage of tests.

As John isn't the most articulate individual this normal involves me repeating it's DKA to various nursing and medical staff until someone does this blood test which involves taking blood from an artery in his wrist. They come back and say he is acidotic. Then treatment can begin.

Treatment involves flushing his blood with shed loads of saline, and intravenous insulin. If we catch it early he is in and out of hospital in 24hours, although it takes a fortnight before he feels 100% better. If we catch it late John is looking at a week in intensive care, and a fortnight of feeling battered when he gets out.

DKA is life threatening, but treatable, if caught in time.