Case in point... The Spelling Bee. A milestone of consonants and vowels for every elementary student, and where dreams are crushed by a single misplaced letter.
Elise recently took part in her district's regional spelling bee. In Spanish. I love that my girl can spell in two languages, while I can barely manage one. It's humbling, really.
The thing with spelling bees is that they have really strict rules when it comes to the audience. You can't make it look like you're communicating in any way. So all my pantomimes for "check your BG", "eat something!", and "do you feel okay?" would not be well-received.
Since this was her second bee, I knew to talk to the head-bee lady (queen bee... hee), explain our situation, and figure out a plan. But that doesn't make the non-stop monologue running in my head go away during the competition:
Check the CGM. Okay, 154 flat. Not bad. How much insulin on board? Crap, she just dropped by 9. Should I give her something? How much insulin on board? When did I bolus her for breakfast? 6:15? Hmmmm, should be about .75 left. How many spellers before her? WHAT THE CRAP WAS THAT WORD? What if the adrenaline kicks in? She'll be so mad if I go up there and hand her some smarties. And what if the other parents think I'm cheating? I DON'T EVEN LOOK REMOTELY LIKE I SPEAK SPANISH! CGM check again. Great, now she's 133. How much insulin now?WHAT KIND OF LETTER IS BAY-GRANDE??? Did she spell it right? WAY TO GO! To give sugar or not to give? Another drop, but not so bad. Let's just wait...
I could go on, but I feel a minuscule peak inside my head is quite enough.
You guys get it, but nobody else sees the tightrope we walk every day; every scenario can has the potential for a sucky outcome.
Don't treat, and she goes low. You have to interrupt the competition which makes her upset and throws her concentration (not to mention the low can make it hard for her too).
Treat, but then the adrenaline kicks in, sending her even higher. She has trouble concentrating because her BG is now in the 300s.
Thankfully, that day I did nothing, and it looked like this:
It doesn't always work this way, but on spelling bee day, it did. And got her a tie for 4th out of 35 kids. And the last non-Hispanic to go out. Pretty proud of my girl! And I love it when she can do something and not even have to deal with diabetes getting in the way.
She's pretty A-M-A-Z-I-N-G.
