Monday, January 08, 2007

Diabetes Sucks!

My sister has Type 1 diabetes and was diagnosed nearly 45 years ago when she was 4 years old. She's in ICU in the hospital now. She had an infection in her leg and has one in her arm. My BIL took her to ER the week before Christmas and she had to have her right foot amputated a few days before New Years.

We visited her a couple times and she's hanging in there. She had a biopsy done on her arm to check to see what kind of infection is there and to check to see if it's in the bone. I haven't heard the results yet. The infection in her arm doesn't seem to be clearing up with antibiotics.

Right now she has congestive heart failure from too much fluid in her system and she also has pneumonia from not being up and around. I think the pneumonia is not surprising, since bed ridden people tend to get it more easily that do those that are not. She's on diuretics to try to get the excess fluid out of her system and antibiotics for the pneumonia.

They need to do more surgery on her foot to neaten it up so that she can be fitted with a prosthesis, but they can't do that until the pneumonia and congestive heart failure have cleared up.

My sister is only 49. She's got a long road ahead of her for recovery.

Diabetes really sucks.