Diabetic and in trouble…
All of our home visits are triaged. This means our nurses and carers turn up early to see clients who need the most care and support. Our diabetic clients are always our first visits of the day. Our nurses check blood sugars and providing the numbers add up, we administer the correctly prescribed dose of insulin making sure that this coincides with a nourishing breakfast.
It’s 10am and I arrive at a scheduled call on my third diabetic visit of that morning. As agreed, I used the keybox and entered our clients’ home. Normally up, I was looking around for where he was. After approaching many main rooms I found him still in bed and he appeared to be asleep.
Saying his name and gently shaking him, so as not to cause any alarm, didn’t rouse him. I raised my voice volume and increased the shaking a little more. There was very little response. I immediately took his blood sugar and discovered he was in a state of hypoglycaemia.
I knew I needed to act fast. It was me or an ambulance. I called into the office to let the managers know I would be held up and asked for support from one of the more experienced nurses. She was on her way. In the meantime, I worked with our client to raise his blood sugar.
I encouraged him to be propped up and accessed his Glucogel and there was enough response to allow this to be given orally. After a short time he slowly started coming to. I then encouraged him to have fast acting sugar-loaded jelly babies and a sugary soft drink. His blood sugar, although still low, was out of the big danger zone.
By this time support had arrived and the senior nurse helped. We ensured he had more complex carbohydrates and that his blood sugar was well within safe limits, before administering his prescribed insulin.
When our client was safe we had a cup of tea and chatted about what had happened. He had skipped supper the night before, the implications of which had been dangerous. We came up with a more robust plan. We also liaised with his diabetic nurse specialist and GP, and his insulin regime was changed to allow his body to better cope with having diabetes.
I am happy to report that our client is doing well and we continue to visit with no further incidents. Thank goodness we visit!
A registered nurse, Nurse Call
