Family Retreat

Time really flies when you're busy with D...

I haven't posted for a bit - been busy with home, work and fun. We are now going on 2 months with T1D and it's beyond amazing how far we've come. Not to go all sappy but I'm so proud of Jilly. When we were first diagnoised one of our biggest fears was full day - day care. Our family is dependent on both of our jobs so quitting wasn't a possibility for either of us. But with no one to give Jilly her injections at day care I had no idea what we would do. Talk about stress!
I brought my fears up with her endo and thanks to him she is giving her own injections, is learning to carb count and read her chart. And following the endo's advice (and with the help of the day care teachers) we ran through two 'trial' injections at after school care. Ren picked up McDonalds for dinner on his way to pick her up from the center (we never eat McDonalds or most fast food so it was quite a treat). And she did her dinner injections there with the staff. Then she had a full day of day care on Vet's Day. Her and the staff handled the injections, and double checking the dial up amount perfectly! I'm still nervous about summer care because the kids take 3 field trips a week. But we'll make it work.

Jilly and I went to Family Retreat two weekends back and I can not recommend it enough. She met a really good friend, interacted with other T1D kids and had some good mom bonding time. I discovered that our family having T1D is an invite into a club of supportive parents. The club even has it's own lingo. I haven't discovered if there's a handshake yet, but I feel a sense of kin ship with these other families.
The panels I went to were very informative. My favorite was the teen panel where a group of kids honestly told us what it's like to be a teenager with T1D. I want Jilly to be as confident as these kids were. Because they were really amazing in individual ways.

The retreat taught me a new rule:
Never get mad at a kid for high blood sugars. It's just a number, and getting angry or using terms like 'bad and good blood sugars' makes a kid feel responsible or to blame for the diabetes when it's no one's fault.