Tag Archives: hyperglycemia

Feb 28 2013
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It Ain't Always Pretty...But It's My Life

Five Seconds

five red button

5…4…3…2…1

Five seconds. Seems like an unbelievably short amount time. Especially considering how much runs through my mind in that amount of time every night when I check Medium’s blood sugar.

From the moment that strip sucks up the perfectly formed drop of blood, to the beep that signifies the moment of truth, a lifetime of thoughts rush through my head.

It is possible to have really good control of your blood sugar as a diabetic and rarely be surprised by the number. But the truth is with Medium, his numbers are all over the place most of the time. I attribute this to his being fairly newly diagnosed, him being 11 and pre-pubescent and the fact that it is not my body, so I don’t know how he is feeling. But what number that glucometer displays is always a surprise to me.

I don’t like surprises.

I am a planner.

A self-proclaimed cotrol-freak, and I don’t like that every night for 5 seconds I hold my breath and pray that the surprise is a good one.

In that 5 seconds, I worry that it is too high. I worry that it will be too low. Somehow in 5 seconds I am able to concurrently think about giving a correction bolus and then setting my alarm to ensure that it brought his number down. In that five seconds I decide between juice and a Quick Stick if he is low. I choose peanut butter crackers and a temporary basal rate if he is only slightly low. And I choose just a 1 hour temporary basal rate if he is just slightly higher or lower than I want. In that five seconds I worry that if he is really high, is it because he is coming down with something or because he forgot to bolus for his bedtime snack? I can already picture myself systematically choosing the correct order of the buttons on his pump to deliver a correction versus setting a temporary basal rate. In 5 seconds I am able to wonder why he is low, feel sorry for myself that this will be another one of the many nights that I won’t sleep, and picture myself hysterical if I were to find him cold and dead in his bed in the morning from this low.

Seems impossible to think all of these things in five seconds.

But I do.

Because in that 5 seconds every night, the world stands still as I hold my breath and my son’s life hangs in the balance.

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Jan 17 2013
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It Ain't Always Pretty...But It's My Life

Hell Hath No Fury

I’ve had a house guest for almost a year now. He was not invited, and he won’t leave. I’ve been really busy for the last few months so we’ve been able to stay out of each other’s way, for the most part.

But Medium’s numbers have been totally whack lately and it’s all his fault. The uninvited guest, that is.

The other night when we checked at bedtime he was 467……WTH? 467??? Just two hours earlier he was in the 100’s. So of course I rage bolused on him and then checked  him 2 hours later and he was 187. Then I decided to check him again at 3:00 a.m. because I got up to pee.

My bleary eyes watched the countdown on the meter 5, 4, 3, 2, 1…..54.

Blink. Blink.

54.

Get the hell out of my house. I’m so over you, you don’t even know it.

It’s easy to push him to the back of my mind when I am extremely busy. It is easy for me to not get down about him when I don’t have time to think about him.

But things have finally slowed down a little bit in my life and now he is all up in my grill again.

And as much as I want to stick my head in the sand and ignore him, I can’t.

Because my son’s life depends on me paying attention to the rude, ugly, smelly, obtrusive and down-right abusive guest.

So here I sit. Vigilantly watching the stupid SOB.

He’d better sleep with one eye open.

Hell hath no fury like a woman whose child’s life has been threatened.

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Oct 19 2012
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It Ain't Always Pretty...But It's My Life

How To Have A Successful Sleepover For Your D-Kid

My article for Diabetes Daily this week! Enjoy!

 

http://www.diabetesdaily.com/voices/2012/10/sleepovers-for-a-child-with-diabetes/

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May 13 2012
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It Ain't Always Pretty...But It's My Life

Happy Mother’s Day

Medium had his 3 month endocrine appointment the other day.  We got an A+ from our diabetes educator.  He liked our numbers  and what we were doing with adjustments and such. His A1C was 6.5–at diagnosis it was 11.4–a “normal” A1c is between 4-6, they don’t actually want it much lower than 6.5 because that probably means that we are having too many lows. So we are doing great! I say we as if I am the one with diabetes, but diabetes is a team sport. And I am the captain. Both the diabetes educator and the endocrinologist asked Medium if he had any questions or concerns.  They asked how he was doing with diabetes and if having diabetes was miserable or if it was ok.  He looked at them like they were speaking Japanese. He has taken all of this very well and is relatively unbothered by it…..for the most part.  There are times when he is frustrated, like yesterday when all the siblings of Small’s baseball team got to have the extra juice boxes and he couldn’t have one. Or when everybody wants to go to Sonic after a game and he can’t have a slushie. But he gets over it almost immediately. One of the best things about Medium actually is that he has virtually no short-term memory, he gets mad about something (REALLY mad sometimes) and then poof, he’s moved on.

I’d like to think that part of why Medium seems unaffected by diabetes is because I am doing such a good job of keeping his sugars in tight control and making sure he is leading as close to the same life as he was pre-diagnosis, as possible. But it probably is really because he just goes with the flow. That part of him has me in awe. I wish I could be more like that.

In any event, he is doing well.  We are kicking some diabetic ass over here! It’s hard work, but so worth it. I would move heaven and earth if it meant my kids would be healthy. There is no greater Mother’s Day gift than three thriving kids!

So a happy Mother’s Day out there to all the great mom’s I know.  Especially the ones who sacrifice everyday, go above and beyond, never have time for themselves, endlessly worry about their kids’ futures and then get up the next day and do it all over again.  In short, happy Mother’s Day to every mom!

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Apr 16 2012
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It Ain't Always Pretty...But It's My Life

Am I Weird?

I was talking with a coworker of mine today who is a nurse. She mentioned that when she was 18 her 9 year-old sister was diagnosed with T1D and she talked about helping take care of her. Another coworker asked if that is what made her want to be a nurse. She said that it was part of the reason, the other reason was that her own daughter was diagnosed with Leukemia when she was 7 and that taking care of both her sister and her daughter made her realize that nursing was her calling. And then she said something that struck me as odd. She said that taking care of a chronically ill child changes you, it makes you weird.

Now, I agree with the first part of that statement. It has not even been three full months since Medium was diagnosed, but I am definitely a different person. Most notably, I am exhausted. Actually, I am beyond exhausted. I am exhausted on steroids. I am almost non-functioning exhausted. I keep dragging my butt in to work every morning and saying, out loud, as if anyone really cares, “I don’t know how much longer I can keep up this pace”. I sit at my desk and think about whether I think I can make it through the whole day without going to the parking lot on my lunch break and taking a nap in my car. I pump myself full of caffeine and I trudge through the day. It feels like I am walking through quick-sand, like I am in slow motion. Somehow I am making it work, keeping up with my responsibilities at work and, for the most part, I feel I am pulling my weight. I know that I am capable of doing more, being sharper, going above and beyond. But I don’t even feel bad that I’m not because I am giving all I can right now. I am all tapped out. That which doesn’t kill us makes us stronger–if that is true, I am IRON WOMAN. But I still don’t get what she means by the “it makes you weird” part.

I don’t say these things so I can get sympathy. I am not the only tired woman in the world, not by a long shot. And I am keenly aware of how, even though things are pretty rough right now, they could be so much worse. On my daily prayer list are so many other families that are going through far worse. But the fact remains, that right now, life is hard. And I am trying my best to get through with my sanity and dignity in tact (incidentally,bursting into your bosses office and announcing that you have to leave because you forgot to pick up one of your children does not help this plight).

Besides being beyond exhausted, I have changed in other ways, too. I carry needles and glucose tabs everywhere I go, I can divide by 30 in the blink of an eye, I know the carb count of a plethora of foods, I stab my child with needles frequently, I no longer make jokes about being in a diabetic coma, I buy home hemoglobin A1C tests, I have insulin pens in my butter dish in the fridge, I know what basal and bolus mean, I regularly inspect my son’s feet, I stab my non-diabetic children with needles on occasion, I have Skittles and Kool-Aid in my underwear drawer, there are smears of blood all over my son’s sheets and some other random places around my house……

Huh, I think I know what my coworker meant now.

At least I don’t have a zipper on my tongue.

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Mar 24 2012
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It Ain't Always Pretty...But It's My Life

Happy Anniversary!

Seems odd to think of an anniversary of being diagnosed with type 1 diabetes as “happy”, but we have real reason to celebrate today!  No, we didn’t discover the cure, and no, I didn’t figure out a way to turn back the clock to a time when Medium didn’t have diabetes.  But our lives have been altered, the path of our journey has changed course and we have a new normal, so different things make me happy now. Like Medium having an A1C of 6.8.  Oh yeah baby, sweet! The hemoglobin A1C test is the litmus test for diabetics to make sure they are staying in range.  A diabetic only knows what their blood sugar is when they test it and who knows what it is doing the rest of the time.  The life of a red blood cell is 90 days, so the test is able to look back and tell you what your average blood glucose was over the last 3 months.  A healthy, “normal” A1C is between 4-6.  When Medium was diagnosed and in the hospital his A1C was 11.4 which told us that his average blood sugar for the 3 months before diagnosis was in the low 300’s.  I bought a home A1C kit which had two tests in it and we took one at his one month mark and it had gone down to 8.6 and now at  the 2 month mark it is 6.8.  Now, I don’t know how accurate the home kits are, but most research I have done says they are accurate within 20%.  We will get an official A1C at the endocrinologists office when he goes for his 3 month follow up.  I will probably do a home test before we go to compare it to the doctor’s office test and check for accuracy.  But none the less, I am so excited that his A1C is so good.  It is almost in normal range and that is even with one month of pre-diagnosis, non-medicated blood cells on board!  So basically we are kicking diabetes’ ass, even without a pump!

And speaking of the pump…..that leads me to my next reason to celebrate today.  I found out yesterday that the insurance company paid the claim for the pump! They denied the claim for the continuous glucose monitor but after a few phone calls, I am fairly certain that will be paid, too.  (They only cover the CGM for one diagnosis code and they must have overlooked the code on his script because it was on there).  So we are spending this weekend going through the all the instruction manuals and taking the online lessons so I can call on Monday and we can schedule our pump training.  Woohoo!

We spent the evening with some of my oldest friends (they aren’t old, I have just known them for a LONG time).  One of the families lives out of town and the other family lives about 25 minutes away and we just don’t get together very often.  There are 8 kids between us and they are all between the ages of 5 and 12, all boys except one girl.  The kids all had a great time together and Medium was right in the mix, hoopin’ it up having a great time.  And I couldn’t help but get a little choked up watching him.  Because while we still have a long road ahead of us and a lifetime of managing this disease, I took comfort in seeing just how far we have come in 2 months and watching Medium having a normal, happy Saturday night with friends.

But I still hate diabetes.

Me and "My Savior".

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Mar 22 2012
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It Ain't Always Pretty...But It's My Life

Uninvited Evil Twin

If you want to try and understand the highs and lows of diabetes, this might help.

Medium’s BG’s on Monday:

7:18 am-116 Good morning perfect number!

10:18 am-120  Hello outstanding after breakfast number, nice to see you!

12:17 pm-102  Time for lunch, who wants a perfect blood sugar number?  Not me, I already am one!

2:48 pm-75  Ok, so we played outside, but still within range. We’re doing great!

4:39 pm-118  Perfect number after a free snack!  (woohoo, we love “free” snacks!)

6:19 pm-73  Yep, more playing outside, it’s the last day of Spring Break, but we are still in range, we are golden.

9:32 pm-103  How about another “free” 10 carb snack, just for good measure to keep us up during the night?  And our 4 units of Lantus, of course.

11:56 pm-271 WHAT???  Two-hundred and seventy-one!!!!  WTH??? It was 10 carbs of honey roasted peanuts for God’s sake!  And we just had Lantus!

2:57 am-217  Really?  Only 54 points in 3 hours?  Why so stubborn?

7:39 am-109  Oh, good morning  perfect blood sugar, where were you last night?  Your evil twin, hyperglycemia stopped by, uninvited.

And this is just a little snapshot of what really goes on.  Every day is a rollercoaster filled with either squashing highs or chasing lows, or, if you are really lucky, BOTH!  Diabetics (or their caregivers) have to think about their every move when deciding insulin delivery.  What am I going to eat?  When am I going to eat it?  How long will it take me to eat it?  What is my BG now?  Will I be exercising later?  Is it bedtime?  Am I stressed or nervous about something?  Do I have a cold?

Aren’t you glad your body just does what it’s supposed to?  I know I am.

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Mar 22 2012
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It Ain't Always Pretty...But It's My Life

Thirty-One

It has been two months since Medium’s diagnosis of T1D and my husband and I thought we could go out for a quick dinner by ourselves.  Medium’s brother, Large is a very responsible seventh grader and Medium is all over this diabetes stuff.  So we felt okay to leave them all for a quick bite to eat down the street.

Medium’s BG at 6:30 was 113.  He ate a 54 carb dinner and was bolused two units of insulin. (He is on a 1:30 carb ratio.  Meaning for every 30 carbs he eats, he gets one unit of insulin. So in this example he was just a teeny bit overdosed, he should have eaten 60 carbs to make it a perfect 1:30 ratio.)

We left the house at 7:00 after Medium had finished eating and gave them explicit instructions to check his BG again at 7:30 since the drug peaks at 81 minutes and he was just barely overdosed and it was a new insulin pen (new insulin tends to have a bit of a “kick”).  Plus Medium and Small were on their way down to the basement to play a rousing game of indoor basketball when we left so we knew with all of those factors, he could go a little low.  And we told them that if he is low at 7:30 when he checks that he should then have a snack.  Medium is well-versed in snacks.  He is very insulin sensitive and very active and tends to run on the lower side more often than on the higher side.  So he gets “free” (meaning he doesn’t have to dose for them) snacks all the time.  In fact, we rarely ever dose for snacks.  He doses for his three meals a day, and that is usually it.  If we do dose him for a snack, it tends to send his BG’s all out of whack so we try to just give small snacks without dosing when he is lower throughout the day.

So here we are, thinking we are so smart and thinking we have thought it all through and have all angles covered, and we have a plan and everyone knows the plan and so we are leaving for date night.

So much for having a plan.

We hadn’t been gone 5 minutes when Large calls and says, “Medium is thirty-one”.

ME: “I’m sorry, what did you say?  One thirty-one?”

LARGE:  “No, thirty-one.”

ME:  “Shit!”

Medium gets on the phone and asks what he should have.  I tell him he should have 4 glucose tabs and then some peanut butter crackers and we turned the car around and headed back home.  By the time we got there he was on the couch, pale and sweating.  I got him a cold wash cloth and Brian and I sat with him and watched him eat.  We retested him and he was up to 76 ten minutes later.  Thirty minutes after that he was 132 and an hour and a half after that he was 210.  Brian just checked him again, five hours after he was 31 and with nothing else to eat other than the 4 glucose tabs, peanut butter crackers and several pieces of cheese and he is now at 319.  From 31 to 319.

Tonight’s score: Diabetes-1, Rawlings family-0

I hate diabetes.

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