While driving Bean to school today she tells me -
"Mom I'm so glad I have to do so many shots because it's made me a stronger person. I used to be a big baby and cry about everything."
I have mixed feelings on this. She's right and I'm proud of her for embracing this part of herself. For seeing the positive in it. But deep, deep down a part of me weeps that she has to.
Tuesday, May 18, 2010
Monday, May 10, 2010
I'm not the most perfect Mother but they love me anyways
Flowers are the traditional symbol of mother's day love. And I like flowers. Roses, lilacs, daisies and lilies. They are all very pretty. But you know what I like more than flowers? Coffee. And my Mother’s Day started out by waking up to my husband giving me a hot cup of Starbucks. Then he made breakfast while the family showered me with tokens of love. They gave me a Wizard of Oz box set, the new Alice in Wonderland DS game (which is incredibly cute) and a plastic glow in the dark zombie set for my future ‘Christmas at ground zero’ zombie Christmas village which I feel will go well with my Disney Christmas village that goes up every year. Bean gave me the sweetest Mother’s Day card where she’d drawn herself as a rabbit wearing her Omnipod. The pod is drawn with the same amount of consideration as the color of her eyes and hair. Simply a part of who she is now. I’m proud of her.While eating breakfast we watched the newest Doctor Who (can you tell yet what a huge geek I am) as well as the older Blink episode. Then we took the puppy, piled into the car and headed for the ferry to Orcas island to do a little touristy fun.I love being a geek and a tourist.
For most of the day Bean’s sugar was on target, even though she was hyper and we had to do some carb guessing for lunch. She’s become a tween – which means she doesn’t listen as well as she used to and likes to challenge us a bit. But I monitored her levels and they seemed fine. I dismiss the attitude as a 9 year old thing. On the ferry ride home she and I wandered the ship and then she started acting truly bizarre. We were standing at the nose of the ferry watching the scenery and then she started bouncing off the walls, hanging off the railings, you know being insane. She was so hyper, and I secretly thought ‘you better be high or you are so in trouble’. Am I horrid?
So I took her back to the car to test – I could have tested on the deck but we were right near our car. She was in the low 200’s. So high but not alarming and not in trouble for her behaviour. We corrected. Thinking it was possibly the excitement or miscalculated carb guess. I should know by now that with this disease you should never assume. I should make that a T1D rule.
With diabetes – never assume.
Because we were driving back late we stopped and got a McDonald’s kids meal for her. Horrid food but easy to carb count. Chicken nuggets, apples and a chocolate milk. It’s our ‘oh crap we need to give her dinner but don’t have enough time to make it’ meal. It’s only been an hour since her correction so we don’t poke. We get the food, get on the highway, bolus for it then discover they gave her a hamburger instead of the nuggets. Luckily it’s more not less carbs. So easily corrected. She’s still hyper in the car, wants to talk our ear off - but eventually nods off for a little snooze.
We get home really late and all of us are tired. I get her to bed, tuck her in and do a finger poke. And crap – the meter reads 340. Not good. She won’t pee for me because she doesn’t have to go, so I correct and set my alarm for 2 am. At 1:40 she wakes me up and drags me upstairs because she doesn’t want to go by herself as it’s too dark. I’m really out of it and it isn’t until I hear her going to the bathroom that it hits me that I should have checked her ketones. Crap, not good. I get her back to bed and check her blood. 360. Triple crap. Now I have to change the pod. This stresses her out and I can’t blame her. Diabetes at it’s best is not a ton of fun, and at 2am it’s hellish. But I go into mommy mode and suspend the pod with the promise that we’ll remove it in the morning, and I do a correction with the humalog pen because I couldn’t remember how to read a syringe and she was so scared of it that I didn’t want to mess with it. I put on the new pod using the new insulin in the humalog pen. So I set my alarm for 2 hours later and try to sleep. At 4am her levels are down – not in target but the low 200’s. I correct and get up again in 2 ½ hours for school. And her target is back in range. As an added bonus she woke up in a good mood, giggling about how she was wearing not one but two pods.
Last night I hardly slept in between the constant blood checks, worry and fear helped keep me awake. It’s so scary not knowing what’s going on in that little body. I feel like awful at work today from lack of sleep and as I’m sitting her trying to get through my lunch the school just called to let us know the pod is reading an error and that it’s deactivated. This time it’s daddy to the rescue.
For most of the day Bean’s sugar was on target, even though she was hyper and we had to do some carb guessing for lunch. She’s become a tween – which means she doesn’t listen as well as she used to and likes to challenge us a bit. But I monitored her levels and they seemed fine. I dismiss the attitude as a 9 year old thing. On the ferry ride home she and I wandered the ship and then she started acting truly bizarre. We were standing at the nose of the ferry watching the scenery and then she started bouncing off the walls, hanging off the railings, you know being insane. She was so hyper, and I secretly thought ‘you better be high or you are so in trouble’. Am I horrid?
So I took her back to the car to test – I could have tested on the deck but we were right near our car. She was in the low 200’s. So high but not alarming and not in trouble for her behaviour. We corrected. Thinking it was possibly the excitement or miscalculated carb guess. I should know by now that with this disease you should never assume. I should make that a T1D rule.
With diabetes – never assume.
Because we were driving back late we stopped and got a McDonald’s kids meal for her. Horrid food but easy to carb count. Chicken nuggets, apples and a chocolate milk. It’s our ‘oh crap we need to give her dinner but don’t have enough time to make it’ meal. It’s only been an hour since her correction so we don’t poke. We get the food, get on the highway, bolus for it then discover they gave her a hamburger instead of the nuggets. Luckily it’s more not less carbs. So easily corrected. She’s still hyper in the car, wants to talk our ear off - but eventually nods off for a little snooze.
We get home really late and all of us are tired. I get her to bed, tuck her in and do a finger poke. And crap – the meter reads 340. Not good. She won’t pee for me because she doesn’t have to go, so I correct and set my alarm for 2 am. At 1:40 she wakes me up and drags me upstairs because she doesn’t want to go by herself as it’s too dark. I’m really out of it and it isn’t until I hear her going to the bathroom that it hits me that I should have checked her ketones. Crap, not good. I get her back to bed and check her blood. 360. Triple crap. Now I have to change the pod. This stresses her out and I can’t blame her. Diabetes at it’s best is not a ton of fun, and at 2am it’s hellish. But I go into mommy mode and suspend the pod with the promise that we’ll remove it in the morning, and I do a correction with the humalog pen because I couldn’t remember how to read a syringe and she was so scared of it that I didn’t want to mess with it. I put on the new pod using the new insulin in the humalog pen. So I set my alarm for 2 hours later and try to sleep. At 4am her levels are down – not in target but the low 200’s. I correct and get up again in 2 ½ hours for school. And her target is back in range. As an added bonus she woke up in a good mood, giggling about how she was wearing not one but two pods.
Last night I hardly slept in between the constant blood checks, worry and fear helped keep me awake. It’s so scary not knowing what’s going on in that little body. I feel like awful at work today from lack of sleep and as I’m sitting her trying to get through my lunch the school just called to let us know the pod is reading an error and that it’s deactivated. This time it’s daddy to the rescue.
Wednesday, May 5, 2010
Thanks for the D
There are some days that I forget we have Diabetes. Where it's so routine and normal feeling that it's like brushing your teeth, or combing your hair. Something you do with out much thought. Then there are days that are full of tears and stress. Where numbers are crazy, emotions run high, and you hate this disease so very much as it runs your life.
I'm not having either of those kinds of days. Even though our numbers have been up and low...and low. I just feel kind of feel resentful at diabetes and at how very few people really understand what it's like living with it. How they binge on cupcakes and fruit with out a care. They're lack of co pays and nights of sleep. How unfair it is. And yet I'm also marvelling at how much diabetes has changed me as a person. In real life I am shy, I have anxiety, I hate crowds. I am a person that worries and is in fear of everything, even the unexplained and uncontrollable. I’m a scaredy-cat that’s afraid to talk to people least they dislike me, or I look a fool. Or at least I was. I'm less of that person now. Those things that used to worry and scare me so much - now seem so trivial with the reality of this cruel and unpredictable disease. I guess I should be thankful that diabetes put it all into perspective.
I'm not having either of those kinds of days. Even though our numbers have been up and low...and low. I just feel kind of feel resentful at diabetes and at how very few people really understand what it's like living with it. How they binge on cupcakes and fruit with out a care. They're lack of co pays and nights of sleep. How unfair it is. And yet I'm also marvelling at how much diabetes has changed me as a person. In real life I am shy, I have anxiety, I hate crowds. I am a person that worries and is in fear of everything, even the unexplained and uncontrollable. I’m a scaredy-cat that’s afraid to talk to people least they dislike me, or I look a fool. Or at least I was. I'm less of that person now. Those things that used to worry and scare me so much - now seem so trivial with the reality of this cruel and unpredictable disease. I guess I should be thankful that diabetes put it all into perspective.
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