Monday, May 16, 2011

Day 7 Stuff I've learned from other blogs

I have learned tons.  I have so many blogs saved as favorites.  Both of parents with T1 and people, mostly young adults, with T1.  I have learned so much, where do I start:

From Kerri on SUM: about D-camp and how I need to send my daughter (ok, I might be ready some day), how you can make a career out of D, how you can have a baby if you want to!!, how your cats can be CGM's and detect lows, how life can even be fun with D !?!

From Kim at Texting my Pancreas: That you can draw cool pictures with paintbrush, that weddings and pumps are awesome together, that Blunt Lancet is an awesome band, how to laugh at D.

From Meri: How having 3 with D is way crazier than just 1.

From Hallie: Surviving a seizure!!

From Lorraine: the mini Glucagon treatment, Family D-camp, how a seven year old can change his pod.

Oh and so much more.  I can never write like they do, but I can only hope to share that we are another family dealing with D.

Above all else, it helps so much to know we are not alone. Thanks Karen for blog week.

Sunday, May 15, 2011

Day 6 Snapshots

Not d-related, but today we lost our 11th tooth:

A molar.  Too cool.

Friday, May 13, 2011

Day 5 - Awesome things

My take: Nothing awesome about diabetes, nothing awesome about Friday the 13th.

Catie's two cents: the fact that candy is medicine.

Day 4 a day late - 10 things I hate about Diabetes

As a parent this is what it does to me and my daughter:

1. The lost sleep from checking at night.  I don't care who says I don't have to, I still will check.

2. The worry until the next sugar reading.

3.  The lows.

4. The highs.

5. Millions of doctor appointments. Asthma helps out on this one more.

6. It's 24/7 and never ending.

7.  The threat to her health, her life.

8. Changing sets, will this one hurt or be no big deal?

9. That the pharmacists know my name when they see my face.

10. She can't eat whatever she wants, whenever she wants (Catie's number one beef) when she's at school or with her friends.

Wednesday, May 11, 2011

Day 3 D Bloopers

OK, we have been at this now for almost two years and I can't list too many major bloopers.  I'm a control freak and I try to prevent the worst from happening, meanwhile,other stuff creeps up on me (bad A1C's, etc). Each blooper is a learning experience.

The lowest number we ever had = 28.  That was in the beginning and from this we learned about insulin stacking.

The highest number we ever had = 591. That was when we had a site failure.  We learned about correcting those with a pen and not the pump.

Highest ketones - moderate during a cold.  We learned about drinking lots of fluid makes these go away.

Other dumb stuff: poked myself with the lancet, poked myself with a needle (her dad did this and thought it meant he might get low and needed a donut to counteract that), tried a to put on a site with the adhesive still covered, took the only glucagon with me to work and had to bring it back home, put the test strip in upside down, backward, not enough blood Err 5's, lots of those.  I wish I had more pictures.

Carnage after a screwed up site change.

Tuesday, May 10, 2011

Day 2 - Letter writing day

Dear Diabetes,

You suck.  I don't have much else to say to you but this: go away. Now.

Dear Asthma,

You suck even more.  You know where you can go.


I won't even give cancer the honor of a note.

Monday, May 9, 2011

Admiration

After reading some of the other blogs I wanted to post about admiring my daughter who has had diabetes now for 1 year and 9 months.

She lets me poke her and test whenever I need to.
She lets me give her drinks and those glucose tablets whenever she needs them.
She lets me run her all over the place to all of her doctors.
She lets me buy her lots of really cool pump pouches.
She lets me give her all the hugs and kisses I can.

And she doesn't complain (not yet, just wait, I'm sure it's coming). the only complaint she says she has is that she wishes she could eat more fattening high carb foods that are so hard to bolus for (fudgie wudgie's at Isaac's).  I hold her back.  I'm a bad mom.

And oh how we love that Choclate lovin' cake...

Day 1 D-Myths

I wasn't sure what to write about in admitring differences.  I'm still trying to find people that I have something in common with in the D-world.

D-Myths I have heard since my daughter's dx (also can be lumped in with stupid things people say to you after they find out you or your kid have D):

1. Did she get that from eating too many sweets/candy/juice?
2. Is that the bad kind of diabetes?
3. Can she eat candy/cake/ice cream?
4. She needs sugar free candy, right?
5. Won't she out grow that?
6. Can't she just take a pill instead of shots?

Each time I hear one of these things I want to pound my head and tell them they are stupid.  Diabetes is fairly common and lots of people have it (Type 2 anyway) so I knew the answers to all of these before my daughter got diabetes. People are just ignorant until it hits them in the face.

So my choices are:
1. educate people
2. tell them they are stupid
3. agree with them, maybe they will realize they are stupid

I usually go for number 1, sometimes I do number 3. Depends on my mood.

This video sums it up. I'm sure everyone has seen it.

Thursday, May 5, 2011

I hate coughing

She's coughing again.  Her numbers are going up. I hate it.  Please make it stop!!!

Her dad is going away for a week, on mother's day. This is where it will get worse.

Coughing is worse than diabetes.  I will anger the diabetes gods here, I better be careful.

Tuesday, May 3, 2011

Quick Endo visit, and other stuff

Our endo is so busy that when you're supposed to see him every 3 months that means you won't get in for 5 months.  Today they called out of the blue with a cancellation at 1:30.  So I took it.  We had just downloaded the pump data last night to send to the CDE and so I had the data and I was ready.  He said her thyroid might be be getting enlarged so we'll recheck those numbers. And raise those basals at night (yikes, at night) that might help with the breakfast spike.  I'll try it.

He still said no to the CGMS. Damn.

I haven't posted for awhile.  I think I had some burnout with Catie's bad cold and growth spurt in April.  We had mild ketones, a bad reaction to the nebulizer medicine, missed 3 days of school, antibiotics, yuck.  I will still tell the asthma story sometime.  So she was coughing again yesterday and my knee jerk reaction was to keep her home (Tuesday is gym day anyway), so that's why we were home.  Jury is still out whether we are sick or not.  Another panic attack for me.

I want to participate in more DOC blogging things, I want to meet more T1's and T3's. I learn alot from their blogs and feel like we're not so alone in the D-World.

 I'm getting closer to talking to the mysterious T1 girl in Catie's dance school.  She looks about 14, no pump.  I don't want to spook her. But I know what she looks like.

Monday, March 28, 2011

Homework, traffic jams, and sick cats

This is how my day goes, a plethora of crazy things to take care of.

We were still on that temp basal of +10% for the  growth spurt.  When will those sugars come back down?  Your guess is as good as mine, so lots of checks and worry over that.

Then Scrappy pukes this morning, 3 days after ending her lactulose.  Need another rx for that, something to pick up tomorrow.

Then it's time for the Monday allergy shot after school.  Traffic jam has the road closed to York, so we get off, turn around.  Won't make it before they close for the day.  We'll never get to the end of the blue or grren bottles of the allergy shots.  That's ok, I forgot to make an appt anyway.  We'll probably be sick next week and have to postpone again.

We got to bring our home work folder home so we'll get a demerit for that tomorrow. At least we remembered to tell us there is no band tomorrow after school, so off to the vet to get the medicine. then home to change our set.

My car goes into the shop for an oil change tomorrow.  Dear hubby has to get Catie to school and the car dropped off and get to his training by 8 AM, not gonna happen.

I have two letters to get done at work tomorrow before a 2 hour have it out meeting with the team at work. Work is supposed to be my relaxing place, hmph.

And they are calling for snow for the rest of the week.  April Fools.


Sunday, March 27, 2011

Growth Spurts

So last night before dinner we were 326, lovely.  I check again 2 hours after dinner which is usually a time of lows and it was 375. %&^%*$ So I debate with dad, change the set?  Growth spurt?

Set looks good, 43 units in the cartridge.  We hedge our bets.  It's a growth spurt.  Increase that basal 20% and give a correction with the pen.  Check again 3 times before bed, we're going down to 265, no ketones. Check twice more during the night.

Wake up to 151 (yea temp basal!!) change set out like normal on a Suunday morning.  Measure our height - yep, Houston, we have measurable growth.

I must be the only mom in America who measures her kid's height every week. But, hey, it will be over soon, so what the heck.  I don't weigh her that often and don't give her a complex about her weight at all, if anything, she could gain a few.  She's grown 3.5 inches since September, at this rate she will be taller than me in one year, and I'm 5'6".

So this afternoon while shopping she says she's shaky, 74.  Before dinner and after 12 crabs of smarties, she's 106.  The temp basal is off.  We'll see where the roller coaster goes next.

The A1C came back at 7.9.  While this may not sound great, with all the growth spurting going on and considering this is a drop from the 8.1 we had in December, it's a small triumph.  I will take it.


Friday, March 25, 2011

Accupuncture and the mystery dance class girl

OK, I'm all for alternative medicines if they make people feel better.  I think they bring alot of relaxation to people, massage therapy, choropractors, accupuncture, etc.

But when they tell you they can cure diabetes (mailto:*@%5E&&%5E$#^&$%@*& is all I have to say.

TYPE 2 NOT TYPE 1!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Ergggggg

So anyway Catie was at Friday dance class and before we left I tested her blood sugar.  The girls in the next class left their things there in the changing room.  One left a medic alert necklace that said Diabetes on it.  Who is this girl and where has she been hiding?????  I will be looking of her purple glasses next week, you better believe it, and I will stalk her down until she and Catie say hi to each other.

Thursday, March 24, 2011

Number Games

I should buy some MegaMillions tickets with all the numbers I see and base my happiness on daily.

Today's high (so far) 282
Today's low (so far) 112

Just found out the A1C - 7.9 (down from 8.1 three months ago - yea!!)

Yesterday's low  41 (yuck)
Yesterday's high 284 (2 hours before the low)

Too bad MegaMillions doesn't have decimals or three digit numbers.

Tomorrow is the last day of the course we've been teaching at work.  Thank goodness. It will be done by lunch time.

Scruffy is eating again. Catie is playing the clarinet. The sun came out.  MegaMillions is up to $304 million.  That's all pretty good stuff.

Wednesday, March 23, 2011

Today was a low day

and I hope we're not getting sick.We just need some time off to relax and go shopping.

And now the cat that loves to eat, won't eat.  Why??? Eat Scruffy eat.

I just want everyone to be ok.

My baby sure can draw:

Sunday, March 20, 2011

This is why I hate set changes


Look at this carnage,

Ingredients for this set change:
1 vial of insulin
2 pink animas 6mm infusion sets ($$$)
1 animas cartridge
1 alcohol pad (not recalled)
1 skin tac wipe (not recalled because IV Prep was recalled)
1 unisolve wipe (cleans off the old skin tac)
1 Metro Bank pen
1 Elmo ice pack
1 insulin pump
1 diabetic kid
2 locked up cats
1 frazzled mom

The first one went on half a$$ so I pulled it off and started over.  The second one was questionable when after breakfast we were up to 306.  But 2 hours after lunch we were 76 so it's working.

Two days from now and we get to do it all over again.

Yesterday we had our A1C blood draw.  Results later.

Thursday, March 17, 2011

People that just don't get it...

Some of the most stupid comments I've heard since Catie got diabetes (in no particular order):
1. Aren't her sugars regulated yet?
2. Won't she outgrow it?
3. Can't she just take a pill?
4. Won't she be fine on the field trip since she's usually ok most other days?
5. Why do you have to check her in the middle of the night?
6. Why do you still have to count carbs and check her blood sugar if she has a pump?
7. Isn't it overkill to weigh her food?
8. You would only be 15 minutes away, it's ok to leave her with her 12 year old cousin for 5 hours.
9. It's just a cookie, let her be a kid...

Tuesday, March 15, 2011

Taylor Swift

My tween loves Taylor Swift.  Loves her.  She heard her story about how she started writing songs at age 12 and begged her parents to take her to Nashvillle and the rest is history.  So Catie started writing her own songs.  And she plays the clarinet and got a Taylor Swift song sheet music (Love Story) and played it right through by sight reading.  Awesome.  Whatever motivates us.

Keep singing Taylor and stay a nice girl!!
Changed a set tonight without recalled IV Prep.  And it fell off *@&&^@*
Tried again with skin Tac.  That stuff is majorly sticky and any set is guaranteed to stay on with this stuff. I'll check it here in another hour to make sure the insulin is getting in.

Monday, March 14, 2011

The Tooth Fairy

Yep, kids with diabetes still lose teeth and still have the the tooth fairy visit.  On Saturday night Catie lost her first cuspid.  This was tooth number 9.  The tooth that is replacing it had already broken ground over a month ago so the old one had to get out of there.  Saturday night she wiggled it like usual and this time it cracked and bled, so it really had to come out.  Dad suggested orajel, and after I put a glob of that on it, she let me pull it out.  I couldn't wait for The Rock to show up.

Well he came, Catie got $5, and then he must have sprinkled that magic sleepy/forgetful dust on us and that was that.

Thursday, March 10, 2011

Toontown

My tween can spend hours on this web site.  Why?  They move from scene to scene, change their clothes and defeat 'cogs" who are robots with manager names.  Learns kids to hate big business I guess.  And hang out with their friends in this world and chat with each other.  Even when they get together they get on the computers and get into Tootown.

Ok, here's my version of Dia-Tootown.  Toons have to wander around and resist temptations to eat sugary treats.  They earn points for selecting low carb items to eat and for exercising. They defeat food police and stupid relatives they think insulin pumps are a waste of money (they get extra points for defeating those people).  Defeating these people and earning good points get them a low A1C score. And in addition to picking out cool clothes they get to pick cool pump pouches for their toons.

Catie would think this is a boring game.

Dia-toons trying to get low A1C's.

Wednesday, March 9, 2011

It's always something

"Mom, today Rachel puked in church."  Great, another tummy bug is going around.  Lord, help me.

IV prep recall just happens to include the box we have been using since we started pumping in September, 6 months ago. Why?

I like that new Geico commecial about the guy under a rock.  I want to be that guy. Bad.

Guy under a rock

Tuesday, March 8, 2011

Band Day, Mushy Fastnaughts, and why I hate infusion sets

Today was Band Day and Catie had to go to the high school from 9 to 2 with lunch served.  No nurse.

So the band teacher brings alomg Catie's entire bin of supplies from the nurse's office.  They better be back in the nurse's office tomorrow for testing.

So there were snacks and pizza for lunch.  Dad was scheduled for lunch testing/counting carbs and bolusing. He showed up on time, tested her, texted mom so mom wouldn't worry, and counted carbs pretty well.  Pizza is always a guess, but after school the number wasn't too bad, only needed a small correction.  the cool thing is Catie counted her own carbs/bolused for the morning snack and got it all right!!

So tonight when we got home with extra math homework from the stuff she missed from being at band day, there was a mushy fastnaught in the bottom of her backpack.  She knew it wold be hard to count so she brought it home.  And it got smushed in the bottom of her bag. And onto her math folder.  Yuck

Picked up my new glasses with the progressive in them today.  Not wearing them since the frame is tight. The more they cost, the less you wear them.

Why I hate infusion sets:
  • You never know if they are working for a few hours by which time you could be sky high
  • They hurt sometimes going on
  • They hurt coming off
  • The adhesive gets bubbles in it and starts to peel up and maybe stops it from working
  • Your fingernail catches on them and rips them out @*&^%*#&^*
  • They don't come in purple
  • They leave little poke holes in your skin
So far our insulin pump experience has been mixed.  I hate changing sets because of the anxiety it brings. We had one site failure with a sky high number.  A1C's haven't really improved.  She's always tethered.  If shots could deliver the precision that a pump could, that would be the best.  Lantus wasn't that bad for us as a basal.  The remote bolus is a cool feature, but you can't remote basal. Blah, blah, blah...

Stupid diabeetus.

Monday, March 7, 2011

Eggs

So today there was surprise snow overnight and it caused a 2 hour delay in school.  This means lunch will be delayed.

So, we let her sleep in, eat breakfast a little later, so that she will make it to lunch without getting low.

And gave her an egg with breakfast.

Our school nurse means well, we even sent her to diabetes for school nurses class, which she learned alot.  But she still thinks Catie eats too many pancakes for breakfast which gives her high sugars post prandially.  Most likely true, but she just can't eat eggs everyday, that gets old.  But when she had that egg today it held her sugars steady so she didn't get low.  Something to be said for eggs.

Easter eggs - milk chocolate kinds.  I ate some of those.  Held me over until lunch :)

Sunday, March 6, 2011

Critters

I promised a picture of the critter room.  First a background story - Catie has always loved stuffed animals the most when it came to toys, those were the ones she loved, played with and carried around with her.  When webkinz came out she kept seeing cute ones of those and had to have them.  We would be in the store and say, oo, i don't have this one and hold it like it was hers and how is a mom supposed to tell her to put it back.  So it came home with us.  Again, and Again.

After 10 years of agains we now hve a room in our house just for the critters.  We are lucky enough to have a house big enough to have a room just for the critters.  I try to keep them picked up and in their bins but for some reason they jump back out and it looks like this:

Sigh.  It's so friggin cute that I will truly miss it someday when she either moves out and takes the critters with her or decides to get rid of the whole bunch.

On the D front:  why is it that sometimes, not all the times, we get excited when we hangout with our BFF or even go shopping with her, we end up high later?  Why? Wouldn't the activity lower the blood sugar? Nope, not all the time.  After shopping today and before dinner we're at 236.  I know I counted lunch the same as always. Stupid diabeetus.

This week we have band day complete with a field trip to the high school where the nurse's office is a mile away from the band room and where they plan on pizza for lunch.  Sigh again.  Dad will be meeting her there at lunch time to test/count carbs/bolus.  Hopefully it will turn out better than last Tuesday with the all time high.

Tomorrow is Monday and I hate getting up on Mondays.  This is the one reason alone that I want to retire.

Saturday, March 5, 2011

Easter Candy, the Mayflower, and BFF's

I love when Easter candy comes out in the stores and I love that Easter is late this year so we can buy Easter candy from Valentines Day all the way to April 23rd, over two months!  If the stores don't run out.  Gourmet jelly beans, Reeses peanut butter eggs, marshmallow peeps, etc. and these are in the pantry at the same time as the girl scout cookies. Catie can sure calculate how many carbs is in a single piece of candy or a cookie by doing the division from the label. But ask her to do the math on a sandwich - Mom, can't you do that?

Now I have always allowed her to have a few pieces of candy after a meal for dessert, and after she was diagnosed for the diabeetus, I told her she can keep eating those things, no problem.  She always placed limits on herself and never sat there and ate this stuff without stopping, like I've seen some of her friends do. So now she gets 25 carbs for dessert and she says that's plenty. And back she goes to what she was doing.

So today my cousin posts on Facebook that our grandmother's family can be traced back to one of the dudes on the Mayflower.  She's double checking a few things, and will let us know.  Pretty awesome.  I bet alot of people can trace their roots to someone like this.   I recently found my first Irish relative on my mom's side, before that no one was Irish in the family, which was hard to believe.  But I know now that my great great great grandma was a Maggie Keeney, proof enough for St. Patty's Day.

Catie can spend major amounts of time on the phone with her BFF while on Toontown, a disney kid web site.  She tried to get me to play on it too, but it was not my cup of tea.  I don't mind her spending hours doing that.  Although her sugars are a little higher than if she had someone to go outside and play with.  Her BFF lives 25 minutes away so they only see each other once a week if that and the last time they each got back on Tootown.  She has a good buddy at school too, ironically with the same name, but she never gets to see her on the weekends or online.  Between the two of them, she has a BFF where ever she goes.  At this age friends are getting more and more important and will be through high school.

Do I have a BFF?  I get a BFF, she moves away or I move away and then I get new friends and try to keep up with my old friends but it's just not the same if you can't see each other often enough. Sucks cause you miss them. I have a few good friends I can talk to alot, we are all so busy and can't do things together like we could when our lives were before kids, jobs, etc. I hope they are close by when we can retire. These are girlfriends I'm talking about. Hubby's are a ddifferent kind of friend, wink.  I can tell him everything, but you still need girlfriends.  Ever watch Sex and the City?  Those 4 girls are so close, it would be awesome to have 4 friends so close like that for many years.  I think that is why women love that show so much.

BFF's

Remind me to take a picture of the critter room tomorrow.

Friday, March 4, 2011

Dance Class

OK, the other day I mentioning rebasaling after a growth spurt and I did tweek a few of these to get the fasting sugars back in a good range and it worked.  My CDE also mentioned tweeking two ratios, bfast and dinner, the bfast tweek helped, but dinner gave us a low, due to me tweeking the basal too.  So anyway, after two weeks of wackiness due to illness and a growth spurt, we have achieved temporary number nirvana.

Until Friday dance class.

Recital 2006 pre-diabetes/pump.

Every Friday from 4:15 to 5:45 the pump is unplugged because you can not dance around with a pump flapping on you.  You have to look sleek in your leotard.  Not to mention feel normal.  So we have a decent snack and bolus before class and unplug.  After class we test and usually are low due to the activity.  And then we get smarties, yum.  Today we were 115 after class, yes!!  Score.  I'm sure later tonight we'll be sky high again. Press on.

Maybe this weekend I will blog about my hatred of asthma. Maybe not.  TGIF

Thursday, March 3, 2011

Midterms and Cats

As my baby heads toward middle school, she now has serious school work ahead of her to include midterms and finals.  Tonight we memorized the symbols for 30 periodic elements.  Are you smarter than a 5th grader?  What's the symbol for insulin? not an element?  But it is a precious item.

I promised the Scruffy story. Catie just loves this cat. Here he is all cleaned up from his humble stray beginnings.  He has eczema, needs special diet food z/d diet which is very expensive, still itches and scratches himself all the time, has tons of crud in his ears, and he attacks my other cat who was here first.  Just for that he lives in the basement most of the time.  But when he's here with the rest of us, he gets the 4th chair at the dinner table, plays fetch with his green mouse tirelessly and will snuggle with you on the couch when you're teleworking or doing the taxes.  He also has bad habits of jumping onto the kitchen island and licking his butt.  My friend found him at the depot where we worked on Dec 29, 2006 and I told her to take him home with her because it was too cold out here.  We were getting ready to move and couldn't take him.  So she said he could live at her house with her other 4 cats and Yorkie until we got moved in.  In the meantime he got Bob Barkered.  We brought him hom eon March 2, 2007, worm and leukemia free, but he had fleas, a broken tail and this itching issue.  Later his tail tip fell off.  The vet didn't believe me until I brought it in for her to look at (in a ziploc).
Look at the scrtach on his nose when we found him.  He even let my friend give him a bath.  What cat takes a bath?  I tried to do that later and got scratched.

I told Catie she has to take him with her to college.  That will be at least 8 years or more.  She says she wants to do college online so she can stay home.  Cats live how long?

This is my baby Scrappy.  She has the best green eyes and gives me lots of kisses.  Scruffy is mean to her.

On a cool note today Kerri Sparling said she wold add me to her blogroll on sixuntilme.  Very cool.  My friend Tamara got to guest blog for her last week.  Blog royalty.

This weekend I will discuss set changes, BFF's and asthma (I hate asthma). Among other things.

Wednesday, March 2, 2011

Yesterday was an all time high

Nothing to be excited about, we had  to have our first site failure and it upset everyone but my hubby handled it pretty well (he only dropped the insulin on the floor once).  But 591 is definitely not a number you want to hear the nurse say, especially if it's the highest you've had since diagnosis.  Sucks actually.

Today is another day and we have band practice.  Did I ever mention that I think it's pretty cool that Catie gets to be in the band?  I always wanted to play an instrument and my parents always poopooed it due to money. Not a valid reason I say.  I hope she sticks with band through high school because it will give her the best friends.

I will talk about asthma another day and Scruffy too.

Monday, February 28, 2011

More stuff

Last night Catie saw my new blog and wanted to have her own. And she can write! You can see her blog at lifeasat1tween.blogspot.com

So today I have a cold and I'm pretty sure it's the cold Catie had last week, I sure hope it's nothing new because I don't want her to get sick again.  I hate when she gets sick, I never know what to expect...will it be just a few tissues or a full blown fever/vomiting/run to the hospital for IV fluids? Yikes.  It sends chills up my spine when she says her throat hurts. Anyone else ever feel that way?

So I messed around with her basals last night and it didn't make a dent in her numbers today, so, last night her dad downloaded the pump (not an easy feat) and got the numbers emailed to my CDE (who also has a 10 year old and an Animas pump of her own) who recommended messing with the I:C ratios.  So we gave it a whirl at dinner.  We'll see, I'm sure there is more adjusting ahead. 

I'm heading to bed early tonight, I hope.  Tomorrow's topic: diabetes and asthma, double the fun.

Remind me to tell you about Scruffy some day.

Sunday, February 27, 2011

First Blog - candy is medicine

OK, this is like an introduction to the world of blogging and to me and my daughter who has Type 1 diabetes.  My daughter is Catie and she would be sure to remind me to mention her dad and the two cats who live with us too.

We joined the world of diabetic living on June 19, 2009 when she was 8.  It was right after school ended for the year and she just wouldn't get better after having a bad cold the last week of school.  We got through her dance recital on June 12, 2009, but she was tired, hungry and very thirsty.  Then she said her glasses weren't working and can she have another drink?  That whole week before dx I kept reading about diabetes on the internet and I even went to Rite Aid to look at the blood glucose checkers, I had no idea what to get so i waited.  Catie's dad said, no way, she doesn't have diabetes, that was for old, fat people. Hmmm.  then she threw up after the babysitter took her to Friendly's for lunch and the mall for a smootie.  I call the pediatrician late on a Friday afternoon and begged them to check her blood sugar.  They said no problem.  It was 503.  Off we went to the hospital.  She had lost 10 pounds in the last two weeks and was so dehydrated.  We only had to stay 2 days, but we came home with a bag full of prescriptions and instructions and I felt like I had a newborn again.

Flash forward and year and a half.  She is now 10 and half, has her pink insulin pump (wishes it were purple) and has adjusted just fine, I guess.  When I asked her the other day how was it having diabetes, she said the worst thing was that she can't eat the treats people bring into school for birthdays because the school nurse doesn't have a clue about counting carbs and catie can't make guesses herself yet.  Soon I hope she will feel confident enough to guess the carbs on a 1.5 inch square peice of baklava (guesses anyone?).  The best thing about diabetes, she said, is that candy is medicine.  She loves getting low in dance class because she gets smarties to bring up her blood sugar.

The worst thing for me?  The constant worry about what is her sugar now?  will it crash before i pick her up after school? or the middle of the night when I'm sleeping and should have checked her sooner?  Or will it be high too often and someday the doctor will say, "well her eyes have some issues..."  Just the last few days have brought on a growth spurt and now her numbers are constantly high so now I get to ride the re-basaling glucoaster.  The fun of having a tween diabetic.

Does she manage her own care?  I try to make her cognizant of being sure to check her sugar often enough, going to nurse at school before she is too shaky. changing her own set so she knows how to do it, adding up her carbs for a meal so she can plug them into her pump for the bolus.  But if mom or dad does it, she's fine with that, as long as she gets to go back to playing on her computer and can call her friend on time, or get to the mall this afternoon to get a pair of shoes since her feet grew.  The seriousness of the whole thing hasn't truly impacted her, not yet.

I fear when she'll be a teen and she gets that teen moodiness of not wanting to deal with it anymore, the potential depression or eating disorders.  so I try to keep everything even keel, no big deal for her and do all the worrying.  Is that the right way to handle it? Rhetorical question.

I wish i had a good enough camera to do D365, but that's ok.  Today I will discuss rage basaling- is there such a thing?  Should I up all her basal segmenbts .05 to get these highs down since she is high across the board?  What the heck, I'll try it.  Then I'll report back.