Halloween is mocking me

I had no idea what tonight would bring, numbers-wise. If you had asked me, I would have suspected that Elise would be running high. Not so much...

Bedtime check (8:00) - 100
15g of carbs (including a few M&Ms - Elise has never had any sort of candy before and you should have seen the smile on her face when she tasted them)
3.5 units NPH (because we were tired of seeing high numbers through the night on 3 units)

We checked her about 90 minutes later because she was throwing a tantrum when she saw Fred and I were going to eat pizza for dinner, this is totally unusual behavior:

BG - 62
9g of carbs + nursing

About 20 minutes later she's at 70. And 20 minutes after that she's at 80.

11:15 - 64
6g of carbs

I know it wasn't all the exercise... we pulled her in a wagon most of the time. A lot of times we'll take our dog for a walk in the evening, and she does the whole walk herself and we never see weird number like these.

I give up... it's going to be a loooooong night. Good thing I have all this candy to keep me going!

Well there goes my award

So just when I think I'm a shoo-in for Mom of the year (she said, sarcastically), I go and mess up. It's so hard being perfect you know?

I'm going to tell you about the awful thing that happened today, and then you will probably say to yourself, "girl, what is all that fussing about? You should hear what happened to MY kid when my attention was diverted for a few seconds!" I'm sure you all have your stories (and if you do, I would love to hear them!). Even if you don't, pretend that you do so I don't feel like such a tool.

Today I took Elise to the playground. She LOVES to be outside in the fresh air (or as fresh as Dallas air can get), running around with reckless abandon. Every time we drive by this particular playground she always says that she wants to go to the playground. I, in turn, tell her I want to go to Hawaii, but sometimes we just don't get to do what we want.

See why I'm up for Mom of the Year in the first place?

But this afternoon we had some free time, so off to the playground we went. Elise was playing pretty hard, and I didn't give her an afternoon snack because she woke up from her nap at 180, so I checked her BG and she was 190. Okay, continue with playing.

At one point she climbed up to the highest part of the playground (something she has done a million times by herself), to go down the slide. I turned my head for TWO SECONDS (I swear), and I hear a THUD, followed by a scream.

I look down and Elise was lying on the ground at my feet. She had fallen about 10 feet through an opening that kids can shimmy down a pole from. The worst part is, I was standing RIGHT THERE (which I always do when she goes up there, for this very reason) when it happened. I don't know if I could have prevented it, or caught her. But it made me feel so horrible, I almost start crying when I think about it.

The good news is, she was okay... she just cut the inside of her mouth. The funny thing is, the thing that flashed through my mind after the requisite, "ohmygosh, is she okay?" type stuff was, "what will this do to her blood sugar?" I know, I think weird things.

About 15 minutes post-fall, she was at 142. So apparently each foot you fall will drop your BG by about 5.

Don't try this at home.

and because I can, here is an uber-cute picture of Elise in her costume at our town's Hallowe'en on Main Street. That hood stayed on for about 1 minute.

Did somebody say SHIRT?

I feel like I have typed that word out a million times already. And believe me, I triple check to make sure the "r" is in there... if you know what I mean!

Anyway, the shirts have been printed and are on their way to us! We should have them in our hot little hands by Tuesday, and I will work my butt of to get them in the mail to you on Wednesday.

From there, they should take about 2 days to get to you, so I'm hoping everyone should have their shirts by this time next week.

Woo to the hoo!

Good news/Bad news

To combat the high overnight numbers, we decided to give Elise 12g instead of her usual 15g snack at bed time.

You may be thinking to yourself, 3g... is she on drugs? That's not going to make any difference. Except with these wee ones, it does. Elise was 168 at 11:00pm, 122 at 12:00, 150 at 2:30, and woke up at 179.

And now you may be asking yourself, "why so many checks during the night?"

Because Elise woke up at 11:00, and cried until about 12:30. At least we know she's not waking up because of the high numbers.

But the question remains; why IS she waking up? I looked in her mouth, and thought that maybe I could see some molars coming in, so we gave her some Tylenol. But she still cried for an hour after that.

So, I am at a loss. Elise used to be a great sleeper until two months ago. She started sleeping through the night at six weeks, and we never looked back.

Do they make Children's Tylenol PM? They totally should.

New post... now with more complaining!

I've been so caught up in getting the shirts ordered, I haven't blogged about anything else. Time for a regularly scheduled post in which I complain a lot. Ready? GO!

Seriously, we are STILL dealing with night time issues, and I am so tired I feel like I am going to fall over at any minute. The smart thing would be for me to lay down and nap while Elise also naps (which would be right now), but then when would I complain? Actually, I don't really like to nap during the day, I always wake up feeling worse.

We had ONE good night, where Elise's BG was in the 170s all night long, but otherwise it's been the same thing over and over. Her bedtime check she's between 90 and 130. We give 15g of carbs (whole wheat bread, soynut butter and banana mashed with avocado), and then 3 units of NPH. At least, right now it's 3 units. I think that's going to change tonight.

At midnight check she's usually in the low 200s. By 3:00 am, she's in the upper 200s, to lower 300s. This morning she woke up at 350 with 1.1 ketones.

To make matters worse, she's STILL waking and crying during the night. And it's killing us.

We're now giving her shot and snack at the same time (used to be 45 minutes apart), and the first night we did that, she had the 170s through the night. But then the next night it was back to the same old, same old.

I think our next course of action is to either lower the snack amount, or up the insulin. The last time we upped the insulin to 3.5, we had a low at about 1:00 am. Maybe less carbs will do it. The one time we tried to give her some fast-acting with her snack (only 1 unit), we battled lows all night.

What really gets me is that her daytime numbers are wonderful. After an initial wake-up where she's high, her numbers range from 90-160 during the day. Why can't we figure out the night stuff?

And how long will it be before I'm certifiably crazy due to lack of sleep?

Can you stand another shirt update?

The totals are in... we had 30 shirt orders! They have been submitted to the printers and we hope to have them here and ready to ship to you in about a week.

While the deadline to order was yesterday, I do have some good news... If you want to order a shirt in a unisex size (S - XXL), we can still submit that for the time being. The printer has those shirts on hand and doesn't need to special order them like the kid's or women's styles.

So, if you forgot to order, it's not too late!

Do you Remember?

Think back to those first few days, weeks and months after your child was diagnosed with diabetes. Remember the pain? The fear? The uncertainty? Feeling like your whole world was turned upside down and you had no idea how to make it right again?

I remember the feelings of loneliness and isolation. Like nobody understood what I was going through.

And then I started a blog.

And then I met so many wonderful people that are part of the D-community on-line. I don't know where I would be without you.

That's why I want to introduce you to Laura. Her son was diagnosed in September at the age of 14 months. She lives in my area and just found my blog. And I am so glad she did.

Could you do me a favour and head over to her blog (just click on her name) to offer some words of support and encouragement?

You guys are wonderful.

Final Countdown...

Thank you to everybody who has sent in their shirt orders! There are still a few hours left if you still want to get your shirts in time for November 14th. I will be placing the order tomorrow morning, first thing, so don't miss your chance to look ever-so-cool!

Edited to add (so Meri's head won't explode): So far we've had 27 shirts ordered, not counting any Canadian orders.

Last day for shirt orders!

Today is the LAST DAY you can order a shirt if you want to receive it in time to wear on November 14th; World Diabetes Day. See the sticky post at the top of my blog for instructions on how to order and pay.

Yet another shirt update... for all the Canadians!

Good news for my fellow Canucks! Nicole has done some digging and was able to procure some shirts on your side of the border for the low price of $7.00 CAD! The total price will be a bit higher, since the shipping charge will depend on where you live (no flat rate shipping up there I guess), but you should definitely save on the shipping AND exchange.

To order, just shoot her an email at wecaralot@gmail.com. Then you can make your payment at http://www.paypal.com/, using her address in the "To" line.

You have to be quick though... deadline is Tuesday, October 27th.

Thanks Nicole for being such a keener and helping the Canucks save a loonie! Now go have a lie down on your chesterfield, put your toque on, and enjoy a nice plate of poutine and a double-double, Tim Horton's style.

Sigh, I miss speaking Canadian.

Order Deadline for shirts

If you haven't already, you need to submit your shirt order right away! The deadline will be Tuesday, October 27th (end of day). See the sticky post at the top of my blog for ordering info.

Get those orders in and show the world your blue!

Wanna get mad?

Then read this letter I borrowed from Shamae's blog. It very wonderfully illustrates that stupidity is alive and well. It is a letter written to the editor of her local paper:

On Oct. 3, myself and my girlfriend were eating lunch at Burger King. A family came in and sat across the aisle from us. While the father was ordering food, we were shocked and appalled to see a boy inject himself with whatever medication, in front of God and everybody all while sitting at the table. We found this extremely offensive. That sort of business should be done in private. How about a little respect for those around you. Other than the obvious fact that it's not sanitary for those who use the table next, you have no idea how something like that can affect people. People go through a lot in their life and things like that may bring up certain feelings and memories best forgotten. I would like to thank those that day for totally ruining my meal.

I know... wow, right? Here's my letter to the editor that I sent to the paper in response.

I do not live in your area, but read the letter from the man who was so disturbed by a child giving himself a shot at a restaurant (October 25 edition) with total dismay. My two year old daughter is a Type 1 Diabetic, and we often have to inject her with insulin when we eat out in public. The fact that there are people out there who have nothing better to do than complain about something so minor is very disheartening. Does he not understand that the very thing that disgusts him, we have to do in order to keep our children alive?
This person is in desperate need of a lesson in compassion. Diabetes is already a horrible thing to have to live with, and according to the letter writer, we should make our kids feel further isolated and ashamed by giving them their medication in hiding. Where would he prefer we do it, in the bathroom? And he complains that giving a shot in public is unsanitary.
This letter really illustrates the lack of understanding people have about Type 1 Diabetes. I, for one, applaud this young man for bravely taking care of himself, whenever and wherever he is.

Whew, I feel better now that I've gotten that off my chest. I encourage you to also write a letter to the editor and express how you feel about such ignorance.

Welcome to Holland... again

I posted this on my blog a few months ago. Then Shamae, a fellow blogger and D-Momma posted it, but this time with pictures; letting people see what her Holland looked like. I thought it to be a grand idea, so I decided to repost it, this time with pictures.

A dear friend of mine, who has a chronic illness herself, sent me this. It resonated with me so much, that I wanted to share it here on my blog:

WELCOME TO HOLLAND
by Emily Perl Kingsley
“I am often asked to describe the experience of raising a child with a disability—to try to help people who have not shared that unique experience to understand it, to imagine how it would feel. It's like this...

When you're going to have a baby, it's like planning a fabulous vacation trip—to Italy. You buy a bunch of guide books and make your wonderful plans. The Coliseum. The Michelangelo David. The gondolas in Venice. You may learn some handy phrases in Italian. It's all very exciting. After months of eager anticipation, the day finally arrives. You pack your bags and off you go. Several hours later, the plane lands.

The stewardess comes in and says, "Welcome to Holland." "Holland?!?" you say. "What do you mean Holland?? I signed up for Italy! I'm supposed to be in Italy. All my life I've dreamed of going to Italy."

But there's been a change in the flight plan. They've landed in Holland and there you must stay. The important thing is they haven't taken you to a horrible, disgusting, filthy place, full of pestilence, famine and disease. It's just a different place. So you must go out and buy new guide books. And you must learn a whole new language. And you will meet a whole new group of people you would never have met.

It's just a different place. It's slower-paced than Italy, less flashy than Italy. But after you've been there for a while and you catch your breath, you look around … and you begin to notice that Holland has windmills … and Holland has tulips. Holland even has Rembrandts. But everyone you know is busy coming and going from Italy … and they're all bragging about what a wonderful time they had there.

And for the rest of your life, you will say, "Yes, that's where I was supposed to go. That's what I had planned." And the pain of that will never, ever, ever, ever go away ... because the loss of that dream is a very, very significant loss. But ... if you spend your life mourning the fact that you didn't get to Italy, you may never be free to enjoy the very special, the very lovely things ... about Holland.”

[Note: Author Emily Perl Kingsley wrote "Welcome to Holland" in 1987. She has been a writer for Sesame Street since its earliest years. When her son, Jason, was born with Down syndrome in 1974, Emily and her husband Charles became activists, educating the public and developing resources to help Jason and other kids with special needs fulfill their potential. When asked why she thinks "Welcome to Holland" has had such resonance for so many people, she replied: “It's about a lost dream, any lost dream. Any change from the original plan. It says that it's okay to continue to feel the pain of the loss; that it's legitimate pain. It says that you're entitled to be disappointed, which then allows you to go on and enjoy what you did get.”]

Yes, yes, yes! How wonderfully this articulates how I feel, and has reinforced a very important point. I have already seen a few of the windmills of Holland; other, wonderful D-Mommas (and one very special D-Grandma!) out there that have been cheering me on from their very own corner of the internet.

As I walk through the tulips, I gaze in wonder at the precious beauty that is my daughter. A baby who has been dealing with this adversity before she could even walk, or got her first tooth. She has already been an inspiration to me. Who knows how many others will hear her story and be changed by it?

Welcome to my Holland...

Elise, right before we left for Holland

In Holland, we see things that are heartbreaking...

Do things that other people think are strange...

And do things we never thought we'd ever have to do.

There are bad days in Holland...

Really bad days.

But there are good days too.

In fact, Holland can be a beautiful place to be.

Nursing and Diabetes

My daughter is two years and almost two months old.

I am still nursing her.

And I am not ashamed of that fact.

If you had asked me right before Elise was diagnosed at the age of 12 months when I was going to stop nursing her, my response would have been, "I don't know, maybe soon."

And here I am, over a year later, still nursing, and my response to that question is still the same.

You see, when Elise was diagnosed I felt so helpless. We had just received this devastating news about our daughter's health and future, and there was nothing I could do to change it.

And so I continued to nurse her. Because it was the one thing I could do for her. I knew it gave her great comfort. And in turn, it gave me great comfort.

I could tell the endo team was not really in favour of my continued nursing. They told me there was no way to know how many carbs she was getting. The dietitians said it made figuring out her diet plan difficult. I said, "tough... I'll make it work."

I now only nurse Elise two times a day; first thing in the morning, and last thing at night. It is such a sweet way to begin and end my day. I might be totally jinxing myself by saying this, but I think it has contributed to Elise's good health. We've only had a few minor illnesses, and to this day she has never had an ear infection. That is almost unheard of I've been told.

The reason I write this is because I saw a post on one of the message boards I frequent. A Mom of a newly diagnosed toddler was wondering if maybe she had been able to breastfeed, her child would not have gotten diabetes.

To that I say, look at me; I nursed Elise up until (and after) her dx. I made ALL of her baby food from scratch using mostly organic food. She never had a granule of refined sugar until her 1st birthday (two days before her dx). I used an alternate shot schedule. I did my very best to make sure my child was healthy.

And she got diabetes anyway.

Stop blaming yourself. It's not your fault, it's not your child's fault. You did nothing to cause this, and nothing you could have done would have stopped it.

I am making plans to stop soon, because I really don't want to be on national TV as one of "those" Moms (and by that, I mean a Mom who stops by their kid's 4th grade class to give them their "milk").

It will be a day of great sadness for me, but I'm also proud that I was able to make it this far.

Diabetes Shirt Info!

Through a very generous offer from my Mom's husband's sister and brother-in-law (my best friend's sister's boyfriend's brother's girlfriend heard from this guy who knows this kid who's going with the girl... name that movie quote!), we are happy to announce that the price for the shirts will be $15... and that's including taxes and shipping!

For any Canadian peeps, it will be $20. Sorry to do that to you, but it's the shipping that kills you.

This is the design we're going with:

So, here's what I need from you; if you want to order a shirt (or shirts!), please send an email to: shirts@helpmefred.com with the number of shirts you want, and the sizes you need, plus the address you want it shipped to. You can order unisex
(S - XXL), woman's sizes (S - XL), as well as kid's (2/4 - 14/16).

You will then need to send us the money for the shirts via Paypal (very easy and totally secure, I use it all the time). To send money, all you have to do is go to http://www.paypal.com/, click on send money, and enter the email address above in the "To" line.

We will not be able to submit the order for printing until we have collected all the money. We really want to send these out in time for World Diabetes Day, so we need you to send in your order and payment ASAP. It will take about a week to get the shirts to us, and by using the flat-rate shipping boxes they should get to you in about 2 days.

Now let's get the word out! Take the info and post it on your blog, or you can link to my blog, it doesn't matter, let's just show the world our BLUE!

Edited to add: on the off chance there are people outside of the U.S. and Canada that would like to order a shirt, please email us and we'll see what we can figure out in terms of a price (based on where in the world you are). I can't guarantee it will get there by Nov. 14th, but at lease you'll have a cool shirt!

Needing help (once again)

I'm reaching out to my wonderful internet peeps to help answer another question I have; how can you tell when a high BG is the result of a low BG and subsequent dumping of glucose by the liver?

How high of a number would you see? Would it keep going up, or start coming down on its own at some point?

The reason I ask is because Elise's BG was 281 upon waking from her nap this afternoon. She wakes up pretty much every day with a BG of about 120 or lower, and on some days she's below 80. We've had to work with her lunch time carbs because she was waking up from EVERY nap with a low BG. Today she overslept by about 30 minutes, and that number is very, very high for her at that time of day.

The other reason I wonder about this is because her dinner time BG was higher than the BG when she woke up from her nap. If I don't give her a snack (which obviously I didn't today), her BG always goes DOWN at dinner time. I think her BG was 318.

I know I'm trying to make sense of the nonsensical, but I really have a strong feeling I missed a low. And if that's the case, I don't want to let her oversleep again.

As always, thanks for any ideas you have... mwah, you are all wonderful!

A little P.S. on the shirt thing

I may have found a cheaper option for the shirts, but I need to find out some stuff first. Plus Fred is away in NYC right now and he handles all things related to the shirt printing, so when he gets home, hopefully I'll have some more info.

It looks like the last design I posted has won out as a favourite, so to make things less stressful, I'm just going to go with majority rules.

And it seems like people are okay with the Paypal option, and paying once for the shirt, then a second time for the shipping.

I did look into USPS flat rate shipping (thanks Lakelady!). I'm trying to figure out if it would be a good workaround for the shipping cost. I have one of the small boxes and I think you might be able to fit one shirt in it (making the shipping cost $4.95). It's when you get up to the bigger boxes that it starts to get pricey. Click here to see details. What do you think... too pricey?

I'll update as soon as I know more!

These are a few of my favourite D things

So far in this just-over-a-year-long journey, I have discovered there are a few things that I just cannot be without when it comes to Elise's diabetes. And because I am such a wily veteran, I thought it would be fun (for me) to share some of them with you. I am in no way be compensated by anybody for saying nice things about these products, but it would be nice if I were.

The Multiclix - granted, I haven't used any other kind, but I love it. I love that you can't see the lancet at anytime during the finger poke. I think it helps to make it less scary for the little ones. I've used it on myself, and it's pretty close to being painless.

Ketone Meter - Yes the strips are expensive, but right now they are so worth it. We asked our endo for the meter, so we didn't have to pay for that. Putting cotton balls in Elise's diaper is a pain, and a lot of times they would shift and not even be wet when we needed to check for ketones. When Elise can pee on a stick, we'll probably go back to using the ketostix. I also have to say that I like that the blood ketone meter shows you what's happening right now, as opposed to the almost two hour lag time with the urine test.

My scale - Since day one, I have weighed everything (well everything with carbs) that Elise eats. I'm pretty good at estimating, but I would rather know for sure. I have one that stays at home and one in Elise's diaper bag. I like a scale that can weigh in grams, has a tare function, and on the rare occasion I do weigh something in ounces, it gives me the weight in decimals points, not fractions (1.25 as opposed to 1 1/4).


My calculator and scratch pad - When I weigh Elise's food, I figure out the carbs by using carb factors (more on that later). I find that using my scratch pad to write out the carb amounts is better than trying to remember that she had 12g of milk, the sandwich was 8g, cantaloupe, 2g... you get the idea. I also use the pad when I'm cooking and I need to keep track of the carb amounts of the ingredients, so I can figure out the carb factor when I'm done.

Carb factors - Don't know what these are? You need to read this post. They changed my life and helped me keep my sanity, such that it is. I keep a list of them in this notebook, adding new ones all the time. Hopefully one day I'll find some spare hours to do up a spreadsheet and post in on my blog.

Labels - Why yes, I am a freak, and I freely admit it. Pretty much everything Elise eats is labled with what it is, when it was made, and the carb factor. That way it's easy for Fred to prepare a meal for her too. I love these sticky labels, and as you can see, I got them at a pretty good price. Yay Target!

Apple juice - I don't use juice often for lows, I prefer to use bananas, but the juice is handy when I'm out and about. I love these Gerber juice bottles. They're 14g of carbs each, compact, don't need to be refrigerated (unless opened), and don't get all squished like a juice box does. Perfect to stick in the diaper bag and forget about until you need it.

My earpiece flashlight - Elise is still in a crib, making middle-of-the-night BG checks a little difficult. I don't like to lower the railing since Elise is a light sleeper and I don't want to wake her. So I have to stand on my tip toes to reach her. If I'm holding the flashlight in my hand, I have to do a juggling act with the meter, lancet, cotton ball and light. Then one day my Mom sent me this invaluable, little tool in the mail, and it has made those night checks so much easier. It hooks around your ear (like a bluetooth, I suppose), and you can point the light in whichever direction you want. Genius!

So what are some of the tools of the trade you just can't live without when it comes to diabetes?

Opinions, Please!

A lot of you wanted the shirt to reflect our battle against T1, so after some suggestions, this is what Fred put together. Let me know what your thoughts are on this design.

Wendy suggested setting up an Etsy shop to sell the shirts, but when I checked them out, it says you can't sell things on Etsy that are made by someone else. So does anyone have another idea? This is all totally new to me, so I'm not sure how to go about setting up something where people can submit their order.

I was thinking that people can send the money through Paypal (I already have an account and just email me the order).

Fred and I were also thinking about how we would figure out the shipping charge. We don't want to just charge a flat rate because I'm sure some people will order 1 shirt, and some will order a whole bunch more. We are not out to make money on this, but of course we don't want to lose money either. So we were thinking that you would submit your order and pay for it through Paypal, then we would find out how much it would be to ship it, let you know and you would submit another payment for that. As soon as we have the money for the shipping, we would send it off.

Of course, this asks for a great deal of trust on your part, and I understand you have no idea who I am except for what you read on my blog. So if anyone has a better idea of how to handle the order/charge/shipping process I am all ears. Or all eyes, would be more accurate I suppose.

Checking In

Just wanted to let you know that I am checking my blog, but this weekend we're out in the middle of nowhere, Texas doing our "cabin-ing" thing with some friends, so I won't be on here as much.

I think Fred said he had received some pricing for the shirts, which may be a bit different now if we're going to add something about T1 on it. We asked about two different styles, regular and women's. If we do add kid's sizes the overall price goes up a bit because they have to resize the image to fit properly on the smaller shirts.

Anyway, I just wanted to let you know that I'm still here and working on the shirt thing.

And because this is a diabetes blog; We are STILL getting screwy night numbers. We drove out here after dinner and when we checked Elise two hours after dinner, she was 315. We attributed it to her sitting in the car, doing nothing and maybe some excitement. When we got to the cabin, we checked again (40 minutes later), and she was 158. Huh?

She also started going low over night, so we had to give her about 6g. Her night numbers have been so weird. The night before (after we went from 3.5 units of N to 3), her BG went up to 438 at around 2:00 am! Though our endo said we should only correct at meal times, we felt she was way to high to leave it alone, so we gave her 2 units of DH.

I can't figure it out. One night she'll be sky high, the next she'll be low. All on the same dose.

I think on my shirt I'll write something like, "help kick type 1 diabetes in the groin".

Just a thought...

Meri's blog post today got me thinking (if you haven't read it yet, you should), what I'm I doing to promote World Diabetes Day and helping to educate people on Type 1 Diabetes?

I left a comment somewhat joking about getting shirts made up with the blue diabetes ring on it. Nothing more. No words, nothing else to explain the meaning behind the ring. My thought process was that people would see it and ask what it meant, opening the door to explaining a bit about diabetes.

My husband threw something together really quickly, and this is what I had in mind:

Here's my proposal: If enough people like the idea, we can put together an order and get them printed up. We have a printer here that we used for the Team Elise shirts that we really like. Fred has already sent them an email asking for a quote. Leave me a comment and let me know what you think... would you be interested in ordering one?

Perhaps I've gone a little mad from all my Mini M&M intake, but I think it's a rather nifty idea.

All I can say is YAWN!

I know I'm running the risk of sounding like a broken record, but what is with these night time numbers? When we raised Elise's N to 3 units, it didn't touch her. So after about 5 days, we bumped it up to 3.5.

The first night was okay, and she woke up with a BG of 191. But last night (and quite coincidentally, Fred is out of town), was a different story.

I decided to just stay up until midnight to check her, and was dismayed to find her at 100. This was before her N was even peaking (maybe it had started to peak, I don't know). So 8g of banana and 30 minutes later she was at 140. Good night.

Until the 3:00 check. And she's back at 100. Sigh. I gave her 5g more and went back to bed. I will rather guiltily admit that I fell back asleep before I could re-check to make sure she was heading back up. Yeah, I know... bad Mom. What can I say? Night time checks are Fred's domain.

She woke up earlier than usual with a BG of 83. So I guess I'm going to scale back the N again. I hate this going back and forth on the amounts, I think this month alone we've given her 2 units, 2.5, 3 and 3.5. We can't seem to find a magic number.

And the stress is getting to me. Last night alone I downed about 5 bags of mini M&Ms (ohmygosh I love those!), and three bags of Swedish Fish. Before you start oinking at me, they were the trick or treating sized bags. At this rate there won't be anything left by (this weekend) Oct. 31.

I knew there was a reason that I don't buy candy until right before hallowe'en.

I'm just lucky my head didn't explode

Today, Fred and I were very honoured to be one of the T1 families invited by the JDRF to a press conference to kick-off the Dallas Passport to Health Expo Event that is focused on diabetes. The mayor of Dallas was one of the speakers, along with a Dallas Cowboy, an ex-NFL'er, an adult with T2, and a very well-spoken 8 year old with T1.

What really dismayed me was that all the speakers, with the exception of the little girl, talked over and over about how diabetes is preventable, and beatable, and treatable if you just exercise and eat properly. At no point did they differentiate between the two types.

At one point I exchanged a grimace with another T1 Mom, and towards the end of the press conference, tears started falling freely from my eyes. I was just so frustrated by the ignorance being spouted off.

They just don't get it. There is a difference between T1 and T2 and people need to be aware of it. Before the press conference was over, the mayor asked if there were any questions and it took all my will-power to not pipe up and ask, "are you aware that type 1 diabetes and type 2 diabetes are not the same, and there is no cure for type 1 and no way to prevent it?"

If I had been there by myself, you bet I would have spoken up, but since I was there with the JDRF, I didn't feel it was the right thing to do. Fred felt the same way.

Sometimes it makes me so mad that type 1 has to take a backseat to type 2 diabetes.

Elise showing off her skills

After a blah day, this scene made me smile. Elise took her meter, lancet, and a cotton ball and was checking her pumpkin's BG before dinner.

I've got a case of the Mondays

Blah.

Ugh.

Can I just go back to bed and sleep throught the rest of this day?

We are still having night time issues with Elise being in the mid to upper 300s, even at wake up. So last night when her BG was 154 before her bedtime snack (154 is high for her at that time of night, she's usually between 90-110), we decided to try to give her a bit of diluted Humalog to keep her from going so high around 11:00.

By a bit, I mean 1 unit of DH. Her ratio is usually 1:3 in the morning and 1:4 at dinner. So I thought 1 unit wouldn't touch her.

WRONG.

At 11:30 she was 78, and the N most likely wasn't even starting to peak yet. Ugh. We gave her 6g, and she was up to 109 by midnight. An hour later, 151. Okay, good.

Except she woke up low (don't remember the number, but it was below 80) at 6:00 am, had 6g more, went back to sleep and woke up at 7:45 at 125.

Not to mention I sat up all night obsessing over what went wrong. I just couldn't let it go. I kept thinking of different things we could try to help get this problem worked out; less DH, same snack, less N. Same amount of DH, less N, more snack. Less snack, no DH, same amount of N. The combinations are endless! Okay, maybe not, but you get the idea.

Today Elise's numbers have been on the lower side of normal so maybe last night she just got done with her growth spurt. I think we'll just go back to our original plan tonight... same ol' N, same ol' snack and let's see what happens.

We're also going camping (rather cabin-ing) with three other couples this weekend and my brain is spinning trying to remember everything we have to bring. I am a total over-packer, but I have to figure out how to fit enough stuff for two adults, a toddler with diabetes who still sleeps in a crib, and stuff for our dog (not to mention the dog) in our SUV. It's going to be tight.

Time to stop feeling blah and get to work on my many lists for this weekend.

Test Strip rant

I don't know how it works with other brands of test strips, but with the One Touch strips we use, we have to test EACH new bottle of strips to make sure they are "in range".

This drives me absolutely bananas, because to me, if the test strips are not "in range" then they are faulty and should not even be put out there for us to purchase.

Never mind that we have to waste at least one strip per bottle testing them. I did the math, and if we didn't have to do this stupid test, then that would save us one whole bottle of strips a year. And if you added that up over Elise's lifetime... well, I'm just not going to do that math because my head just might explode.

Another thing that makes me want to knee someone in the groin (yeah, I know... anger issues blah blah blah), is that when one strip tests out of range, the brilliant people at One Touch want you to go ahead and test another strip. Yes, this was the advice given when we called up to complain that three out of four bottles in the box we just opened were testing high.

"Well did you just test one strip? Because sometimes you need to check more than one" was the enlightened council that we received. Yeah, I think my head DID just explode a little.

So if one strips test in range, and one out of range, then how-in-the-name-of-all-things-good-and-pure are we supposed to be confident that every other strip is okay? And what does this mean for Elise's numbers?

Not to mention that we're flushing more of our money down the toilet testing more than one strip per bottle.

Last night when I was testing a new bottle that had a range of 122-148 (or something like that), the first strip came in at 149. Now what the bleepity-bleep do I do with that? The next strip tested okay, but still... ARRRRGGGGGGHHHH!

Do ya see why I'm a little wound up?

Here's my idea, One Touch should put an extra strip (at no extra charge) in each bottle. Call it a goodwill gesture for those of us who basically have to open up our wallet to the pharmacy companies and go, "here, take it... you can have it all." I think it would be rather nice of them.

In fact, maybe they too could win a Nobel Peace Prize for their efforts.

Never again

Okay, this is the last cheesecake post, I promise!

After Elise woke up with a BG of 320, we gave her 2.5 extra units of DH. That should have been more than enough to take care of her high BG. To our surprise, she was 363 at lunch, and after we corrected her with 2 more units, she was 426 before nap time... yikes!

After her nap she came down to 226 and was 147 at dinner and 108 at bedtime.

Now, I don't know if the cheesecake is really to blame. We did go to a fall festival at a nearby farm (pictures here if you'd like to see them), but she doesn't usually spike like that due to excitement.

But it's the only thing that makes sense, so for now, cheesecake is a bad word in our house.

Boo to the cheesecake

Thanks to everyone who chimed in about the glucagon and the cheesecake. I love that I can ask all my crazy questions and you are so quick to help out!

We thought we had figured out the cheesecake pretty well since Elise was 103 at bed time. But at midnight check she was 303, and 320 at wake up this morning. I have no idea if the cheesecake was the culprit or not, but I think we'll stay away from it until we get it figured out better. We only go to the Cheesecake Factory once or twice a year anyway, since just looking at their food can cause you to gain about 50 pounds!

Cheesecake and carbs

Hopefully someone can answer this for me... what would be the carb factor for plain cheesecake without the crust?

Fred and I (plus Elise, if course) had our date night at the Cheesecake Factory tonight, and Elise reeeeeeally wanted to try the cheesecake we ordered for dessert. I gave her some tiny bites, figuring it can't mess her up too bad, especially since most of the carbs should be in the crust.

To say she loved it would be a gross understatement, so I'd just like to know for future reference.

Someone out there must know, right?

Glucagon question

I remember someone, somewhere telling me that glucagon expires after a year, and you need to throw it away and refill your prescription.

It hit me (only a month late), that we've had Elise's glucagon for a year now. When I looked at the case, it had an expiration date of 2010.

Sooooo I'm confused. When does one replace the glucagon? Is it really after a year, or do you follow the date on the case? Is this just a conspiracy by big pharma to make us part with even more of our money?

That last one was a joke. I don't really believe stuff like that. I mean, not all the time. I'd say like 50% of the time. The truth is out there, you know. Cue X-Files music.

And while I'm on the topic (which I'm not, just can't come up with a good segue), we had some better numbers with Elise last night. We missed the early-late-night check, sleeping through the alarm, but one of those fun Texas storms woke us (and Elise) at 3:30. Her number was 166, which is great, but I would love to know what it was before the N took effect. She then woke up with a BG of 145. Not too shabby.

Slowly crazy update

So we gave her 3 units last night and she woke up at 145 (30 minutes later than usual because somebody overslept and didn't wake up until 8:15... who me?)

Nice. Except...

Except when she woke up crying around midnight, she was 315.

Except when we checked her around 2 am, she was 340.

So then, what of these middle of the night numbers now? What do we do to get rid of them? It can't be another growth spurt (can it?), she just went through one.

Back to the drawing board.

I am slowly going crazy...

Man are we having issues with Elise's bed time insulin. She's on NPH, and it seems if we give her 2.5 units, she wakes up in the mid to upper 200s. If we give her 3 units, she wakes up in the 50s and 60s.

Really? Can 1/2 a unit make that big of a difference? Really??? I just don't get it.

When we do her middle of the night check (when we give her 3), she's usually about 190-220 range.

I really want to figure this out.

A question for all you NPH'ers or ex-NPH'ers: When did you give the bed time snack, and the bedtime insulin? Around the same time? A little bit apart? How far apart? Which did you give first?

Okay, that's 5 questions, but I'm trying to figure out if we need to alter her schedule. As of now we give the snack first (15g), and the insulin about 30 minutes later.

Sorry about the disjointedness of this post... I'm really tired, but wanted to put my questions out there in case anyone had some wisdom to share.

Good night... (I hope!)

A re-post

When I announced on my other blog almost a year ago, that I was going to start a new blog all about having a baby with type 1 diabetes, I was nervous and excited. I had finally found an outlet for all the emotions that were boiling up inside of me. It felt good. It felt right.

And then I received my very first nasty comment. And it sent me reeling. How could someone who had never met me, and had no idea what I was going through, be so judgemental? I had been fortunate so far to avoid these cockroach commenters of the world-wide-web.

And then I put my big girl panties on and took it for what it was worth... nothing. And of course I later had to lash out at the anonymous commenter in a post. Just for chuckles, I thought I'd re-post that blog entry:

Below is a comment I received on MOB (my other blog) on the post where I announced "Death of a Pancreas":

Karen said...To encourage other parents like me by captioning your blog with "Death of a Pancreas"? How morbid and stupid is that? if your goal is to encourage and enlighten us who have kids with diabetes, you might want to be more positive and check your facts first. The pancreas DOES NOT EVEN DIE with diabetes. Geez.
December 2, 2008 7:26 PM

Here is my response:
Joanne said...Okay, so I was going to just delete the above comment since it most likely is a drive-by comment from a crazy, but on the off-chance that this person is being truthful about who she says she is, I'll address her rather snarky comment.

1) Believe me, I know EXACTLY what diabetes is. I've been living this hell for the past three months. But "Death of the Pancreatic Beta Cells in the Islets of Langerhans" just doesn't have the same ring to it. My daughter's pancreas has failed to function as it should, and to me, it feels like a death. TO ME. Got that? ME!

2) I'm so sorry that you are so easily offended by a simple blog title. If you really are a mother of a child with diabetes, you should know that the only way to not let this disease get you down is to have a sense of humour about it. You should read some of the things we joke about on the diabetes board I frequent. Actually, no you shouldn't. Your head just might explode from the offensiveness of it all.

3) Since you have blocked your ID, I have no way of knowing if you are a crazy or not. I have no animosity towards you, or your comment. I even welcome a response to my comment if you are so inclined. But please, you handle diabetes your way, and let me handle it my way... We're both (supposedly) fighting the same enemy anyway, right?

I was disappointed that she never came back to reply. My point is this; if you cannot find anything to laugh about while battling this horrific fight, then you are already beaten. If Elise grows up seeing me grim-faced all the time while giving her a shot, then that is how she's going to deal with it too. You need to show your child that their life will be what they make of it, not what diabetes makes of it. I choose to laugh at diabetes (when appropriate, of course), and respond in my own sarcastic way. It's how I deal, how I show diabetes that it's not the boss of me. So, you can choose to let diabetes bring you and everyone around you down, or you can face it with a smile, laugh, or maybe even a jig... because who on this earth can be sad while dancing a jig?

What I learned about Diabetes this month... September Edition

I've decided to start what could hopefully become a recurring post; What I've Learned about Diabetes this Month (or it could totally fizzle out after one time, we'll see). I think it will be interesting to look back and see some of the mistakes we've made, and how far we've come.

-You can totally travel with a toddler with D and they won't spontaneously combust on you.

-You can give insulin practically anywhere, anytime... including the top of a ferris wheel in the dark with only your husband's Palm Pre for light.

-You should try not to make insulin changes on nights that are out of the ordinary. Because it won't work and you'll be left wondering if it was the change itself, or the different schedule. It will drive you mad trying to figure it out.

-Elise is one AMAZING little girl (okay, I've always known this one). Every time I turn around, she astounds me. It makes me want to handle life's hardships with the same beauty and grace as my two year old.

-You can survive on very little sleep. You'll be crabby and generally a pain to be around, but you won't die.

-Life with D is a roller coaster. One week you'll be on top of the mountain and everything is great, and the next you'll feel like you're plummeting out of control and you just want to get off the ride. It gets better. Then it gets worse. Then it gets better again. Rinse and repeat, my friends. Rinse and repeat.

-Every child should be able to eat cake on her birthday.

Okay... I think that was all my learnin' for this month. Let me know if you like the idea, or if October's installment should include just one entry: Things I've Learned posts are boring!

Will I ever get a good night's sleep?

It's not what you think... Elise actually slept through the night last night, waking up at 8:15 (about 30 minutes later than usual). Ordinarily, that would make me so excited I would be dancing a jig (now THERE's a scary picture for ya), except the dog decided last night would be a perfect time to avenge the fact that she's not getting all the attention anymore, and throw-up twice in our bedroom.

And the best part? She waited until just after midnight... when I was slooooowly drifting towards that beautiful refuge known as SLEEP.

All Fred and I could do is laugh as we cleaned it up.

Tonight we decided to up the dosage on Elise's NPH again as she woke up with a BG of 278 this morning (that's too low to be a rebound from a missed low, right? Aren't they usually in the upper 300s or even 400s?), so no uninterrupted sleep for us for a few nights.

Which begs the question... what am I still doing up???

Oops!

I totally forgot that I wasn't supposed to post about, you know, the D-word. Can I blame it on the fact that I often don't know what day it is?

Bad Joanne...

Sleep issues continue... and the State Fair!

Well, it looks like it's not the higher BG keeping Elise awake at night. We upped her NPH dose from 2.5 to 3 units, and had to give her some banana last night at 1:45 when her BG was 102. About 30 minutes after we gave her the banana, she woke up crying like she always does.

Granted, last night was not a typical night and in hindsight, we shouldn't have changed the dosage. We went to the State Fair, and I think all the excitement caused Elise's BG to be higher (230 as opposed to about 100) at what is her normally her bedtime check. We were still at the fair at that time and didn't get Elise to bed until almost 11:00!

She was 114 at wake up this morning and that would be great, except for that 102 in the middle of the night (she went up to 201 after about 8g of carbs). So what this tells me is 3 units of NPH may be to much and 2.5 may not be quite enough. But again, we chose a bad time to change her dosage. Oh well, call it a learning experience! I'm still not sure if we'll try again tonight...

But, the trip to the State Fair went great! If I'm being honest, I hate the fair. The crowds, the smells, all that fried food (I'm sorry, it's just sooooo gross), and the fact that it's in the not-very-nice part of Dallas. But Fred loves it, and we got some free tickets, so we went.

It was a last minute decision, which totally grates on my plan-every-last detail personality, but we just rolled with it. The timing with dinner, shots and snacks were a bit awkward (like eating dinner on the train and getting her nightly dose of N at the top of the ferris wheel), but we made it work, and Elise had a fabulous time. Which makes it all worthwhile.

I didn't get too many pics, but here are my favourites:

Elise and Poppa in front of the fountains

Our friend's band is playing at the fair, he's the guy playing guitar on the left

We also watched a bit of a soccer match while at the fair (both Fred and I play)

Elise watching the pig races... yes, pig races

Moooooooo!

Elise strangling, er, hugging a goat

Enjoying the view at the top of the Texas Star ferris wheel

The obligatory family picture