Sunday, November 23, 2014

Hide 'n' Seek

One of these things is not like the other, can you see it?  Kudos if you know what that is.  I have found them on the garage floor, in Sweet's bed, on the kitchen floor, under the car mats, on the window sill, under the rug, in the bottom of my purse, in between couch cussions, and on the kitchen counters. 
She goes through 5-8 of these a day and will test herself wherever she may be at that time.
Test Strips.......expensive little buggers!

Friday, November 7, 2014

A1C Score


Sweets had her first A1C test today since her diagnosis.   When she went into the hospital it was 14!!  Ouch.......
Today, I am proud to say, it was 6.8 
Whoop whoop.
It is has been by far the hardest thing I have ever done to keep Sweets blood sugar in range day in and day out.....hour after hour.  Sometimes I wonder why in the world I care so much, but after we get a score like this, and after only just a few month of learning how to care for her, I remember what it's all about.  Keeping her healthy so she won't go into ketoacidosis again or pass out from low blood sugar.  So later in life she won't go blind, have kidney failure, nerve damage, skin disorders, gastroparesis(just to name a few complications), and will be able to have children.
Plus it feels really good when the Endo pats you on the back and looks you in the eye and tells you "good job" because sometimes you don't hear it enough.


Tuesday, November 4, 2014

It's just a pizza party

or it used to be just a pizza party.  Now it's...........

She has a pizza party at 1:00 and I can't give her the normal lunch at noon with insulin and then turn around 45 minutes later and give her more insulin for pizza. It's dangerous to stack insulin.  So, I take baby sister to the sitters while I go pick up Sweets so she can hang with me for an hour at noon while the rest of her class is eating their lunch.  I know it's been very long since she has had breakfast and that she won't last an extra hour without eating or we risk low blood sugar.  I can't give her much though, or it will raise her blood sugar too much, so I choose to give her a couple sips of juice and some peanuts to hold her over.
We drive to the convenient store and get her a diet soda then head back to the school to wait for the bell to ring.  We find that the teacher is going to allow each student 1 piece of pizza.  That's usually no big deal, but this is Sweet's lunch and she's starving.  One piece of pizza isn't going to cut it.  So I head to the office where she has yogurt tubes in the fridge. I count the carbs for her pizza and yogurt while she checks her Blood Sugar (which happens to be in a very good range thank you very much).  We go to the restroom to take the insulin because Sweets still hasn't gotten over the fact that it's ok for someone to see her take her shots.  I leave her to have her pizza party without mom hanging around.
I drive back to the sitters and grab the little sister.  It's 1:15 by now and at 3 o clock (two hours after she eats) I have to go back to the school to check Sweet's BG to make sure she isn't dropping.
I told her Home Health nurse not to bother coming in for her today because the schedule was all messed up and consequently I got to nurse her today. No big deal...........it's just a pizza party
................(for a normal person).


Saturday, November 1, 2014

How does Halloween work?

I read a little piece of advice in a magazine article on holidays with Type 1 while I was in the hospital with Sweets.  It advised, for Halloween, on making the other parts of the holiday such as: pumpkin carving, costume making, party games, and getting together with friends the focus and fun instead of the trick or treating.  We tried to help sweets have the costume she wanted, made a whole evening dedicated to carving pumpkins and roasting seeds(which are very high in protien and low in carbs), attended the church Halloween dinner and party, and her school grade tried to make the class Halloween party about movies and making slime instead of the treats.  Of course we let her go trick or treating.  How can you tell them they cannot.  But, then you get this whole big plastic pumpkin full of sugar crap.  Knowing all about carbs and sugars and what they do to your body makes you look at that much candy in a new light.  There is no way she even can have more than 1 piece of it a day. Some days it's not any.   1 small candy bar can mean a half unit more of insulin with her meal and if she's in a higher range already to begin with, well, that doesn't work for me.  I do my best to let her have some though and she is very understanding.  Good girl.
Candy makes the blood too sweet for this vampire girl.
I offered to buy it from her, we tired to convince her to give it away, etc.  She's hanging on to it though and I don't blame her.  As she said "I worked hard for all this candy"!

Diabetes Awareness Month

Just another month to make me feel like I should be doing more, but can't figure out how.  I am not campaigning, or wearing t-shirts around town every day.  I am not spreading the news to neighbors and friends because, frankly I don't have time to associate with anyone.  I do not have a huge Diabetes blog that I am spreading the word with or even a Face book account connected to hundreds of friends. 
My daughter has diabetes.  The End.  I figure it's enough that I keep her alive and not sick every hour of the day.