The Mocking Meter

It was four in the morning. I had over slept. I had wanted to check my son by three.  I had increased his basal rate to deal with reoccurring highs but he had also been doing yard work that evening and I was not sure how things were going to go in the diabetes world. 

I stumbled into his room, made my way through the landmine of dirty socks, old t-shirts and the fan he has sitting on the floor. I found the meter, strips and even a lancing devise this time. He lost one the previous night. It has yet to be found but I am sure will surface one day when I least expect it!

I tested and found that he was high.  I cursed. I felt like there was no winning.  I then looked at the meter a little closer. In the top left hand part of the screen was a little text box. It was like the meter wanted to tell me something.  We are using a Verio IQ at the moment so I know that the meter did want to tell me something. 

It had noticed the pattern of highs that he has been having overnight. At four in the morning, when you are tired and frustrated because diabetes has once again messed you (and your child) up completely...(I mean he should have been low not high after an upped basal AND physical activity), the last thing you want to see is a know-it-all blood glucose meter telling you the obvious--Diabetes kicked your butt once again! 

Looking at that small little icon, I could hear the meter say "He is high. He has been high at night for some time.  You really should up his basal rate.  This can cause problems later. What is wrong with you? Why haven't you done this already? Are you thick? I am giving you the icon.  Get with it won't you!"

I cursed a little more and left the room. Maybe I will get it right tonight...maybe but probably not. 

Diabetes its a Time out for you!

Dear Diabetes;

I know that you have basically given me the summer off and I appreciate it.  You were on vacation for four of the last six weeks and I have very little input into what you were doing to my son.  

You returned a few days ago behaving like a spoiled two year old child in full tantrum.  I would kindly appreciate it if you would stop! I have not seen a bg level below 10 (180) or even close to 12 (215) since my son came home. I have injected my son for the past two nights to get some sort of control going on and you have bucked that by still not letting him come down into range. 

You have made his body used to being high.  We have tried numerous site changes to battle you.  I am getting tired. 

You have me up at 3am each night fixing all of the damage you have done throughout the day. You are creating more and more highs.  You are causing me a great deal of stress. I can no longer go back to bed and sleep at 3 but instead toss and turn for two more hours wondering if I will win this round. 

I am tired, Diabetes.  I would really appreciate it if you can finish with this childish behavior and behave for at least a short period of time. We are heading off on a plane today and then will be a way from home for a few days. Granted if there are any major problems we will be in the best possible place next week but guess what? I really don't even want to see minor problems. I am done. Finished. Consider yourself on a time out! 

Thank you;
A very tired Mom. 

Diabetes won that round...

Once again, let me just say...I hate diabetes. It gets on my nerves. It messes with my mind and every time I dare to think I have things figured out? WHAM! It screws with me. 


A few nights ago we were traveling to take my son to visit with his father for a few weeks.  We made a few stops along the way and decided to enjoy a nice big pizza in our hotel room. That night readings provided some great insights.  My son was perfect after two hours.  His readings climbed at the  four hour point.  Eight hours after eating the fat was wreaking havoc and my son was nice and high. Ugh!


I decided to take this as a learning moment.  I took careful note of how things  rose and vowed to make some great, informed changes later. I was going to turn my frown upside down!


The next day we headed back on the road for the final leg of the trip for my son.  We stopped for some lunch. Once again, our travel meal was higher in fat than I would normally like.  Once again, I was sure that we were going to defeat diabetes by getting the insulin ratios and delivery times perfect. Once again I was wrong! 


As we traveled down the highway, I heard my son ask "How much of this glucose gel should I take?"


Crap! "How low are you?"


He was 3.0 (54).  I told him to drink the entire thing.  I looked back and noticed how pale he was.  I began scouring my purse for more glucose. I always have enough food to feed a family of four for a week but I had cleaned things out when I went away last month. I hadn't replenished. What was I thinking? 


Panic began to creep in. We were on the highway.  We were not near fast acting glucose.  All of our beverages were sugar-free.  I watched the clock and held my breath. Finally I asked my son if he had retested.  He did. He was fine. Phew!! Catastrophe averted! 


Later, I found more glucose hidden in the truck for such emergencies but I am so glad that we didn't really have to worry about it and I still hate diabetes!

Give him an Inch

I stumbled into my son's room at 3am.  I grabbed his meter and tested. He was 18(325).  What the??? He was almost low a few nights ago.  He was a little high the night before but this is more than just a little high. What was going on?


An eye looked back at me. "Do you feel high?" I asked. 


"No" He mumbled from his bed.  


I checked his pump and he had corrected at 1am.  What was up? I asked him and he made some sort of excuse. I looked a bit closer. When was his last site change? BINGO!


The site reminder said he should have changed his site two days ago...around the time of the mysterious increases in bg levels.  Did said son do this? No, he pressed ignore and continued on with his XBox game.  


I have been obsessing over his testing. I have randomly checked his meter. I have made small tweaks BUT I did not write down on my calendar when his site needed to be changed (I am sooooo going to miss this feature when we have to give up our Cozmo).  Mom not nagging plus son ignoring equals a bad site that was causing unnecessary highs.  

Moral of the story...Mom needs to be more on the ball checking readings and noting when sites are to be changed followed by harping until those sites are actually changed.
 

And then there was the bad news

A few hours after my son got home from his time away, I asked to see his meter. I knew there was going to be a problem when the excuses began.  


"Well you see, you won't find all of my readings on that meter. I used another meter in my shed."


I asked where the other meter was.  Of course he had left it behind at his father's.  That was convenient! He said that he had done a lot of testing on the meter he brought home in the last few days so it would give me some idea of what had been going on.  


As I scrolled through the meter I found readings that were between 20-30mmol (360mgdl+).  I tried to breathe.  I asked him what was going on. 


"Well, I was high this morning because I didn't want to go low last night and interrupt the little bit of sleep I was going to get.  You see how I was low at 11pm? I had a juice and a granola bar to cover it." 


"A little bit of overkill don't you think? You were just low (3.7/65), a juice would have done it.  If you weren't going up that quickly after 15 minutes then you could have added more without sending your readings through the stratosphere." 


I continued to scroll through the meter and note the results.  I continued to work to breathing.  All of the readings were high and higher! What was going on? 


"I think my site was going bad.  See, my readings dropped once I changed the site."


"Dropped? When? Where? How long was this site in? You were running over 20 (360) for days!"


He replied that his site was a little old. He had probably gone over by a day or so.  Perhaps his site was as much as seven days old I asked?  He just shrugged his shoulders. I wanted to scream but instead I asked him about a cut on his hand. 


"When did you do that?"


"Yesterday."


"What do you think it will look like in seven days?"


"I hope it will pretty well be gone."


"So when you lance a small hole in your body for your cannula, how much healing do you think has gone on around it in seven days? When the tissue around it heals, it can't absorb insulin any more." 


He replied that he thought he could go 5-7 days before a site change.  I know that some people will with no problem but he has insurance, he is young, and I really didn't want to go down that alley with him so I replied that ideally sites are changed every 2-3 days. 


"Oh, well you see all of these highs have meant that I learned a lot this trip. I should probably do this more often. I never realized this stuff before. Now I know it. Wasn't this a good thing?"


I had to laugh because otherwise I would have strangled him.  None of this information was new. It was all stuff he knew before.  I told him that continuing to run that high would result in serious complications. He told me that he had been told that was hogwash.  I replied that maybe one or two highs would not kill him but doing this forever would quickly result in problems. To help him understand all of this, he was now definitely going to the Friends for Life Conference in Vancouver.  He needed some more training.


Once again he shrugged that teenage shrug and went back to enjoy being home.  I just sat and shook my head.  Maybe he would learn because of this.  Maybe one day everything I tell him about his diabetes care will have some meaning. In the meantime, I will continue to pray, to hate summer vacations and extended periods of insane bg levels. 
  

Sometimes your the bug

Originally posted in 2009 but the feelings remain the same....

Today I am definitely feeling like the bug. Its after midnight and of course I was dying to get to sleep. I set my alarm for early tomorrow morning...my son's last day of school. I found a meter and a strip. I grabbed a lancet, waded through all of the junk that the boys had left on the stairs rather than putting away and was off to test. One last check for a few hours. One check and I could sleep! We had been out for pizza to celebrate good grades so my youngest son would still be high. He was 16 (288) earlier so you know I was going to be able to rest.


Wrong! I took the meter. I filled his finger with blood. The strip refused to suck. What the???? Okay, I cleaned the finger. I got more blood. I tried again. It just barely accepted the blood. I waited for the reading...E5. It was an error reading!! Not enough blood. Oh the lovely four letter words that were on the tip of my tongue as I headed back downstairs. Let me try this again.


New meter. This one had to be better. New strip. Same lancing device. Back up the stairs, this time grumbling and picking up items as I went. I threw the items off to the side for the boys to deal with tomorrow and headed to my son's bed. Once again, I lance his finger. Once again, I get a large amount of blood. The strip sucks this time. I walk towards the stairs not even thinking about having to correct. Good thing...he was 3.2 (57). More choice words as I shuffle off to get some juice. I fill a glass, find a straw and do those stairs for a third time in less than five minutes. He is not keen on drinking. I finally get him to sip. He drinks it all except the last few drops. Those are sucked up into the straw and then fly all over his pillow. He is using my cream pillow cases and I have managed to get strawberry juice on them! I can't even blame him but I am choked. I clean them as best as I can and now I wait. Why are 15 minutes a lifetime when you are dead tired and simply want this day to end?


Yeah! 5.5 (99) and I am off to bed for two hours. Oh the fun! Oh the joys! Oh where is my DexCom Seven Plus????

Another Step Towards Growing up

My first question to my son each morning when he reaches the breakfast table is "What was your reading this morning?" There are a number of reasons for this greeting. First is the fact that he has been known to get up, eat his breakfast and forget to test.  Another reason is that he also will forget to prebolus when he is high before breakfast or correct for a reading that is high but he thinks is okay.

This morning he hadn't tested when he woke. I said it should be done before he leaves his bed each morning. He said he was too tired. He had been up for over an hour last night because of a high.

Whoa! What? How did I miss this? Was this before I tested him? Was it when he first went to bed? Did he need to do a new site? What was going on? Instead of peppering him with all of those questions, I first asked "What time were you so high? and what is high?  I had tested and corrected a 20 (360) at 2:30am maybe we need to do something." 

He explained that he was up at 4:30 and his bg level was up to 25 (450).  He had air in his cartridge that was creating all of the havoc.  He was pretty sure he had fixed the issue but it took him an hour (so he claims) and he was not a happy camper this morning. He proceeded to correct the 14 (255) that he was down to and bolus for his breakfast. 

I watched him both proud and sad.  He had woken up (at least he wakes for highs if nothing else).  He had taken charge of his care at a time when we all want to sleep instead of engage our mind.  He had not come and woke me up.  He dealt with this on his own as he had been taught.

He is not yet 15.  He should not have to be getting up at 4:30am to fight with air getting into his body.  He should not have to feel the ramifications of a high blood glucose level.  He should not know what any of this means and how dangerous it can be. 

But he did. But he does. This is his life. This is his disease. This is part of growing up as a child with diabetes...and I still hate it.  

The old bait and switch!

Last night I laid in bed and realized that my son could easily be a used car salesman...any salesman. He could probably sell ice to Eskimos. 

Exam week for both of my boys is next week. I have said that I am glad that they live in two different homes because my stress level for both of them would be through the roof. For my oldest...well this is for all of the marbles. Its his final set of final exams in high school.  For my younger son, its his last set of exams before he officially begins his high school years. Either way, I will worry and I fret knowing that both of them can do well and praying that they won't cave under pressure.

It was this mindset that took me into my son's room last night. We went over his science information. He aced it. How was math coming along? They had had extra periods and he had a firm grasp of the concepts.  I asked him about social studies. He didn't have any books to study with...he hadn't bothered to bring them home yet but he swore that he knew what he needed to study. I told him to bring home books!

I then moved on to  diabetes care and his glucometer. "How have your readings been?"

"Pretty good actually.  Well, except for that last reading. That one was pretty high but I am sure it was an error. I think there was something on my hands."

"Did you retest?"

"Yeah, but it still read kind of high.  There is no worries about my social studies Mom. Its all about World War Two and I know it cold.  I know everything there is to know about Hitler. He was born in April of 1889.  His mother died of breast cancer when he was 16 and his father was dead when he was 12...." and the conversation went on. He wowed me with his intricate knowledge of the life and times of one of the most evil men to walk our planet.  He continued right up until the time of Hitler's suicide, highlighting salient points and noting theories such as his cruelty was driven by the damage syphilis had caused to his brain.

I left his room amazed and impressed. If he was right and this was the focus of his exam, well he will ace it! As my head hit the pillow I realized that I had been duped. I had fallen for the old "bait and switch" and swallowed it hook, line and sinker.  I never asked if he had checked his pump. I never asked if he had corrected. I never asked when the last site change was. He managed to move my mind away from the issue of why he was high. I just listened to the huge wealth of information that he had in his head with pride and blissfully left the room.

At 1:30am, I woke wondering if we would pay for me being snookered and my son would still be high.  Sure enough, Mr. 22 (400) was still rearing its ugly head!  I checked his pump and he should have changed his infusion site days before. I got my own revenge as I prepared his exposed arm and did a site change right there and then.

I stumbled back into bed and shook my head.  Yes, my son had managed to wow me with his knowledge of history and distract me from his poor diabetes care with the ease of the slickest of sales men.  He may need to rethink his career plans yet!

A Faulty Pancreas Lives Here

Last night I was sitting at the kitchen table with my youngest son. He was doing his math homework.  As we worked through the page, I began to get frustrated. He seemed to truly understand what he had to do but when pen went to paper the answers were just plain wrong. I had left him to do a few questions on his own.  When I came back, I saw that the answers were not correct and asked him how he came up with his responses.  He told me how he needed to figure things out.  The process was right but the results were a disaster.

We joked as we went along that he must be out of range. He was making foolish mistakes. I chalked it up to rushing through.  As we progressed 14-7 equalled 5 and I knew that there was something seriously wrong!  He looked a little pale and finally he took it upon himself to test.  He was 19(345).

"That explains it! I think its time to take a small break.  Show me some of the other homework that you have done while we wait for you to come down." I told him.

He got his other homework and a new infusion set. It turned out that his site change was due the day before. I had woke him up early that morning to change the site because he had gone up a bit overnight and I assumed the site was bad but being my son...well he didn't do it. 

Each year I talk to parents and educators about children with diabetes in schools. Each year I mention this very thing--children who are hyperglycemic are cognitively impaired.  I have seen it is effects in my son on occasions before. Each time it happens it both amazes and scares me. 

You cannot see diabetes. You cannot "see" a high--well if you know him he might look a little off but still for the most part it is invisible to the naked eye. The average person would just assume my son was not overly intelligent.  An uneducated teacher would assume he just was not getting the concept, had not paid attention or had not studied. 

Each time this happens, I see the reality.  My son cannot fix this. Yes he can change his site but highs will occur for other reasons that he cannot control. Diabetes does not play nice.  It does not show itself to the outside world.  There is no gaping hole in his stomach area to show that his pancreas has failed.  It just quietly impacts his life.  It silently attacks and as parents we must continue to work to train those around our loved ones what these attacks look like and how to handle them.  Until there is a cure, we can only educate and pray for the best.

Diabetes Hangover

My son has complained of a "glucose tab" hangover after I treat him for a nighttime low.  This morning I realized that diabetes gives me my own kind of hangover.

Last night something happened that I never expected. I should have remembered that we are dealing with diabetes and it is never predictable but I was complacent.

I woke up at 1:30am ready to test until I realized that it was a bit too early. I rolled over to sleep for another hour.  The hour became an hour and a half but my son was still fine(8 or 136).  I felt confident that basal rates were working. He had been low the night before and I had made adjustments.  Life was good and I headed back to a peaceful sleep for a few more hours...or so I thought.

At 5am Larry woke me up.  He said that my son was up using the washroom. He never does that during the night unless there is a problem so Larry knew I should be getting up. I did and asked my son if he had tested. He had and was 17 (289).  What the??? His bg level had more than doubled in just two hours!!  Something was seriously wrong! I told my son to change his site.  This was way to fast of a spike. He told me it was fine , corrected and rolled over to go to sleep.

I went back to bed second guessing myself.  Did I miss a low at 1:30?  Was he alive thanks to a rebound? If he rebounded there would be hell to pay the next day with highs and fears of another low.  Was the site bad? Was the new pump failing already? I eventually managed to fall back to sleep, but not for long.

An hour later I awoke to the sound of vomit hitting the toilet bowl.  This was so not good! I had been right.  My son was not getting insulin.  The site must be kinked. Again, I got up and waited.  My son looked terribly pale.  I told him we needed a new site.  He had one in his hand.  

"I can't believe I would be throwing up at 17." he said.

I told him that he had probably gone up in the past hour.  We tested and he was now over 19 (+323). We chanced a correction on his pump and both went back to sleep for a few minutes.  At 7am I tested him again. He had dropped down to 14 (238) and said he felt a lot better. He was no longer a ghostly white so we decided he was okay to go to school.

I still am not positive as to what happened. His site looked fine when we took it out.  Despite a trip back to bed after my son was ready for school, I still felt out of sorts. The night continued to haunt me.  Questions plagued me.  Where had I gone wrong? As things ran through my head, I realized that like my son's glucose hangover, diabetes gives me its own hangover.  It messes with my emotions and my physical being the next day and then some. Sadly there is only one fix for my hangover and that's a cure for diabetes.

Educating while Vacationing

Our trip to the US had an unexpected twist...educating at almost every stop.  As I have mentioned, Diabetes kicked our butt on many days.  Between carb counting errors, long days driving, and site failures, highs were around more than they were gone. This meant having to explain to people why my son was heading asking to use their washroom before he said hello and why he was drinking a gallon of water while trying to say hello.

Larry would explain to people that my son had Type 1 diabetes and was running high.  They would then ask if he was adhering to his diet and assumed at his age he wasn't.  We would patiently explain that he did not have the strict diet that perhaps someone with Type 2 might have.  He eats in a very healthy manner but is allowed and enjoys certain treats now and then.  We would expand on the fact that as long as he matched insulin to what he ate, he was unrestricted in what went into his mouth.

Getting them to understand that the highs were not "his fault" and he was not a "bad diabetic"  was a challenge.  I quickly realized how society has been groomed to "blame the victim" especially in the case of diabetes.  They see it as a disease where the patient is the problem.  "If they didn't eat this then they would not be sick." "If they exercised more then they would not be in this state."
 
It was rather disturbing but I hope that we did a good job educating the people that we did come in contact with.  I hope that they will stop before they blame the victim and realize that in many cases there is no blame.  Most of my son's serious highs were because of failures in the tools we were using.  In our case, sites that kinked two minutes after they were inserted. This could not have been avoided...well it was when we quit using stomach sites but we could not know that at the time.  

We also, thankfully, came across people that knew exactly what we were dealing with.  They grasped the challenges despite not living with the disease first hand and were very understanding.


I once looked upon every interaction as a teaching tool. I have been very open about my son's disease and work hard at dispelling myths.  My son, as I have said, is very private.  He does not like people to know about this disease and shys away from questions. This trip, I did not want to educated. I was frustrated that Diabetes would not give us a small break. I did not want to deal with educating the misinformed but that is not the way life goes.  Hopefully we gave people something to think about and a little more information than they had before we stumbled across their paths.

Diabetes Crashes our Vacation

3.2 (57)..what in the world is that?? Holy cow, its a low!! And of course it happened at 2:30am but it was a low.  I don't think I have seen one of those since back in June.  My son has either been in range or running on high, high and higher for the bulk of the summer. This was especially the case on our recent trip into the Eastern United States.

A couple of weeks ago, we picked my son up from his father's house and headed off on a road trip.  We stopped in New Brunswick long enough to drop off our dogs with my aunt before making our way to the border.  We here headed to New Jersey, New York and Connecticut. 

Our first day of travel went alright.  There were a few highs and I joked about the last time we had made this trip.  My son had been in double digits the entire time we were south of the border. I swore that the second we crossed back into Canada he instantly dropped back down into range. I was hoping that this trip would be much better and so far so good!

I should not have jinxed myself.  Day two saw his readings begin to creep up.  We added a travel basal and continued to hope for the best.  Driving and highs are not a good combination.  Driving, highs and freeways are an even worse combination.  My son was not happy knowing that he was high and neither was I.  We both wanted to enjoy the scenery, not stress over diabetes.

By the third day, Diabetes had created a complete trainwreck for us to deal with.  We had put in a new belly site and then, my son being a teen, had also enjoyed a monster sized breakfast with a triple digit carb load.  We headed down the highway and I was nervous as to how well we had counted the carbs and whether his system would handle all of the food he had ingested. It didn't take long to find out how badly things could turn.

"Mom, I'm high."
You mean that you are high?
"No, I mean I am HI.  No reading. Just HI"
Crap! You have lots of water?
"Yes"
You have a new site and new insulin?
"Yes"
Maybe the site is bad. 

As we are driving down the freeway to our New Jersey destination, I had my son pass me insulin, alcohol and a syringe. I was going to deal with this disaster head on.  We continued down the interstate and I calculate the correction dose for my son. I don't want to rely on a site that seems to be toast so it was time to stab him and pray he would start to come down.

He then prepared a new site for himself and added a new resevoir of insulin.  We continue driving and I hoped that ketones would not develop.  Having to use the washroom while speeding down an interstate is bad enough but to have to vomit as well in sweltering heat would be the worst. Thankfully multiple injections, water, and a new site seem to do the trick.  After a number of hours and another injection--just in case, his readings finally came down into the low double digits (200s).  We could almost live with that.

We began to more aggressively bolus his meals in hopes of beating Diabetes at its own game.  If I thought a meal should be 50g of carbohydrates, we bolused 75.  It seemed to work...until the next site failure but that was a little further into the trip.

The time for a cure is NOW

Last night I lay in bed wearing my DRI "Cure" t-shirt and wished for a cure more than I ever have. 

We were headed home after two weeks on the road.  Diabetes had kicked us pretty hard as I will explain in upcoming posts.  We were on a boat and had a 14 hour crossing ahead of us.  I brought up insulin, an infusion set, and syringes.  I thought we were all set. 
A site change was past due. When we settled into our cabin for the night, I had my son do a site change.  A few hours later I awoke to him getting up to use the washroom.  Either we had yet another bad site or he didn't bolus enough for his earlier snack. I rolled over and went back to sleep confident that he was taking care of things.

An hour or so later, I could hear my son up yet again.  I knew that things were not good. I got up to hear the splash of him vomiting into the toilet. CRAP! This was not good.  I dug through our supplies and quickly realized that I had left my glasses down in our vehicle.  Squinting, I looked for syringe and insulin. I also tried to find a new site...there wasn't one.  Crap was quickly upgraded to another four letter word!

I injected a correction and my son began to apologize for waking us up.  I wanted to cry.  I told him that it was not his fault.  It was diabetes.  It sucks but there was nothing we could do to prevent the site failure.  He said that he had tried to creep around but had banged about a few times. Again, we said that there was no need to worry about it. We would worry instead about getting his readings down.

We all finally nodded off back to sleep. I could hear my son breathing across the room from me and knew that he was finally resting. He had said that he was coming back down before the injection so hopefully between the two he would be good to go. That's when I laid down and thought it was ironic that the shirt I was wearing to bed that night said "CURE". 

I have never held out a lot of hope for a cure.  My son has.  After two weeks of diabetes doing all it could to curtail a lovely family vacation, I really want it gone. We have put in our time. I can only imagine what it keeps doing to my son's body. Its time for a cure. We have waited long enough.

Pullin' up the big girl pants...

Diabetes sucks. There I said it and it about summarizes all emotions that have occurred in the last four days.

Friday I heard about the five, count them that is F-I-V-E young ones who died because of Type 1 Diabetes.  There was a young woman who went into DKA while her parents were on vacation.  The callous reaction was to say, well she should have caught that she was high and treated. What was wrong with her? Reality--some people go into DKA very easily and the situation can quickly escalate out of control especially with no one to help you.

There was the nine year old little one who became so depressed that she took her own life.  She was nine! She was so devastated by this disease that she ended her life? Heartbreaking for those of us reading about it but the pain for the parents must be unimaginable.

As well, there was an eighteen month old baby whose diabetes was not diagnosed until it was too late. This child's life was cut down before it started.  This story hit very close to home as my own son was only one year older than this child and was within twelve hours of death himself when diagnosed.

There were two other families who lost their loved ones in the past week to this evil disease. I didn't know what to do with all of the information. I didn't cry.  I got a little angry at those people who think that I am too obsessed with diabetes and those who think that I worry over nothing when this could have been my child.  Highs and lows happen but few people really get how serious they both are.

The anger eventually faded because our own reality came pouring in.  My son was high...I mean HI and he was quietly dealing with it himself. I asked why he was drinking so much and he said it was because he was in the 30s (over 540mgdl).  I was ready to have a heart attack. All afternoon? I grabbed the meter and couldn't see past the latest reading "HI".  HOLY CRAP! Can't register????? What the......?? I quickly told him to drink water, change his site and his cartridge.  We checked for ketones. Yep, they were there.  I hate highs.  Six hours later and he was finally down to 8 (145) and I could breathe again.

Yesterday my son happened to be looking over my shoulder as I checked out my Facebook page.  "Mom why are there all of those blue candles?  You have one, Jen has one.  What's with all of the candles?"

I paused, I thought, what do I say? I have been blunt with him over the years about the seriousness of diabetes but did he need to know this? He is coming out of himself, enjoying life and taking care of himself.  I had been reminded of all of the amazing people that I knew who lived with diabetes for 20, 30, 40 and FIFTY years.  I didn't want to bring him down but I couldn't lie to him....
"They are memorial candles."
"Memorial candles?"
"Yep."
"What do you mean?"

"They are to remember people that have lost their lives to diabetes."

"Oh."

That was enough for him.  He didn't know if they had died last week or six years ago.  He was okay with things left there. I breathed a sigh of relief. I hadn't cried. I had pulled up my big girl pants and focused on the living and the wonderful possibilities.  I was okay. My son was okay.

Then I read, "He Held Me".  Tears were very close. The author explained her feelings as she went low last night and had to rely on her spouse to bring her around.  My heart broke.  I hated diabetes even more.  Why did she have to go through this? Why do we have to deal with such a gamut of emotions. Can things just stop for a few minutes please? Can we experience some "normal" for even a day?  But then I remembered..."normal" is only a setting on the dryer so I guess its time once again to pull up the big girl pants and count the incredible blessings in my life rather the dwell on the sadness that can consume you. 

My son is alive. He has many wonderful role models in the diabetes community.  I have amazing friends and family who do get "it".  Accidents happen.  We are saddened but we must move on... Time to give them an extra haul.  

Up, Up, Up and now down we go

It seems like forever since we saw any readings that were not double digits (over 180 for my American friends).  Of course during the neverending highs, we had my son's A1c done. We have not gotten back the results.  I really don't want to even begin to look at them. I know we had good readings somewhere in that three month period but when? For how long? I can't remember them so that cannot be a good thing.  Maybe I will just look at the date for our next appointment and not scan to the bottom to view our failing diabetes grade.

Since we saw our diabetes team last week, Mom went crazy and upped all ratios and basal rates.  Nothing was safe. As I state before--I was going to win! I would beat puberty. I would beat hormones.  I would see readings under ten again!

Not long after my acts of diabetes agression, I began to finally see results.  My son texted me from the bus "Mom, I have 7.6 (135)".  Happy dance! I wanted to scream! It was only one reading but finally something in range!!!

I held my breath for the next reading.  Could we go for two? Had I made some headway? YES!! Another good reading. I was doing a happy dance to end all happy dances.  He was proud.  I was proud and those around us probably thought we were insane.

I quickly got used to readings in range again. We still had blips and sites that fell out between my last test and him getting up but things were pretty good.  So good in fact that when we were out for dinner the other night and he said "Mom, I'm low."  I looked at him like he had three heads. 

 "Low?"

"Yep.  I am 3.6 (65) and I need some glucose."

Again I looked at him like he was from Mars.  "Glucose? Oh you need some tablets! I know I have some somewhere. They have to be in here."  It had been so long since we needed them that they were lodged at the bottom of my bag.  The weekend saw more lows--not serious, scary, middle of the night lows,  just "Barb you over shot the mark a smidgen" lows.  This morning we went to the orthodontist.  When we came out I had my son test.  He was low.  He was out of glucose.  Did I have any tablets? What were we going to do? We had been dealing with highs for so long I hadn't concerned myself with carrying extra glucose anymore or topping up my bottles. It appears that neither had my son!

Tonight its tweaking of basals, praying that he doesn't go high again and happily filling up all glucose containers with glucose tablets.  Ah the joys of life with diabetes!

T-E-E-N is a four letter word!

Today was the day anyone living with diabetes seems to dread...the A1c report card.  The last A1c was Horrible (yes that is horrible with a capital H).  We went up over a full percentage point. I wanted to cry.  There was logic behind the horrific rise.  We were moving.  My son was spending a lot of time away from me and his care was pitiful at best. It still did not look good and I just could not handle any lecture.

Today's A1c did not have that same excuses.  My child has spent almost all of his time with me.  We did have our earlier fall rebellion with no testing and minimal bolusing that was bound to have an impact on today's test.  Lately though he has been testing.  He has been bolusing and our readings? Well they are the readings that now make me understand Joe Soloweijczyk's suggestion to run over your glucometer.  Despite doing all things right, my son's reading cannot get out of high double digits (we are talking 250+ for my American friends).  I have upped basal rates.  I have adjusted carb to insulin rates.  We have prebolused.  We have changed sites, insulin and even batteries.  Nothing is working.

I walked into our appointment today full of trepidation.  These people do not know us well. They know me by reputation which is not as bad as it sounds but we have only seen this team once before.  What we they think? They will know that I am now officially the worst diabetes mom on the planet. I spent the night wondering if we would soon have to look at adding something like Metformin to his regimen. I was grasping at straws!

This afternoon we pulled up our big people pants and headed into the clinic.  We went to check in and she said "Your appointment was last week and we have you as a no show. Your next appointment is in April."  What??? I told her we had received three different appointment dates and times.  The last one was via email just before the new year.  It told me to come in on the 11th.  I found the email and told her who sent it.  She said that his doctor was in and she would see what she could do.  She went back and they would fit us in.  No one had a clue how this had happened.

They weighed and measured my child.  He had grown 3cm (over an inch) and gained 13 pounds since the summer! I could tell. Besides the insulin resistance, he was starting to be able to look me in the eye.  His doctor noticed the change in him as well.

We saw the nurse.  We have known each other for years.  She reminded me that puberty was hell and things would only get worse.  The A1c's of under 7 would be something we could fantasize about but would not see for at least a few years.  I was dying! She said the last A1c was not that bad considering and I told her that this one would not be better.  She looked at his readings and agreed.  He has been high, high and high.  We haven't seen a low in weeks.  He is getting used to running to high and I am in panic mode.  I told her that I had upped his basals and she said to keep doing what I was doing.  If I needed some help to give her a call.

We saw the doctor and she concurred. She suggested that I not be afraid to warm it to the insulin.  The little jumps that I have been making are just frustrating me.  Make bigger leaps (probably during the day when I am more comfortable) and try to find our way out of this.  She agreed that we didn't want this to go on for long and was open to the possibility of adding in other things if need be but we are not at that stage yet. 

All in all, the highs are not the result of a non-compliant kid.  Despite my grumblings, he has been doing a lot better lately and I made sure that I said it a lot in front of his team members both for his benefit and theirs.  He is just growing and going through puberty.  He eats non-stop but that's called being a teen. I have lived through that with one son and now we go through it with another. 

I left the house today filled with anxiety.  What would they say? I am a bad mom for allowing this to happen.  My finance reminded me that he was growing and I was doing my best.  You have to truly love that kind of realistic support.  I came home calm, happy that we were done in less than two hours, and feeling ready to tackle that horrible four letter word--TEEN also known as the insulin resistant years of hell.

Hi Hi Hi Merry Christmas?

Hi! Hi! Hi! Merry Christmas??? Well my son says that Christmas will bring changes.  I certainly hope so.  Life was coasting along okay.  Diabetes was just giving us its usual little bumps but all in all we were handling it alright.  Testing remained hit and miss but we had a few more hits than misses.  Diabetes must have realized that Christmas is fast approaching and we don't really have a lot of time for messing around with other "stuff".

We started out with a few highs here and there.  Perhaps some basal tweaking was in order.  Once that was done we ran into a new catastrophe--tubing breakage that went unnoticed for a few hours while at school.  He had spare sites at school but instead went through about 100 units of insulin filling tubing and correcting.  He was ketonic by the time he came home of course but quickly changed tubing, insulin and began to guzzle water. I was proud that he handle things on his own and took charge of his care so thoroughly (once he got home).  Thankfully he was a lot better within a few hours.

Next came the night time snack with no bolus to cover. He was high and felt ill during the night but quickly came down with a correction. Finally we just had highs.  Pancakes are evil and lead to highs. Growing also leads to highs.  Pancakes we can extended bolus for.  Growing is going to take a bit more work. The shirt I bought him during the summer on our vacation is now too tight.  The running shoes he had for school no longer fit.  The child I looked down on, now looks me in the eyes. This growth thing is going to take some serious insulin to cope with.

Its funny, when my oldest son would grow I would just hate to see my baby getting so big and my wallet would hate to see me having to buy new clothes so quickly.  With my younger son, again, I can't believe how quickly he is growing, clothing him is not cheap, but we also have the added grey hairs of trying to guess at basal and bolus rates.

Life can't be simple when diabetes moves in.  Of course these little quirks in otherwise, decent blood glucose levels are occurring in the month before we go and have another A1c done.  We were going to have this one in a much better range.  I am not as hopeful anymore.  We now have errors, puberty, and Christmas holidays all to mess with life. 

Last night I thought how much simpler things were when I had full control.  I fed him.  I tested him. I bolused for his food. I logged.  It was a lot of work but he didn't eat around the clock like he does now.  I could keep readings in range.  Life was simple.  Now he does things on his own. He can cook.  He eats enough for six small children and he doesn't need Mom around at all functions.  He does his own WAG for carb counting (and usually he is pretty good at it). Mom sits in the background as the constant voice of "Test. Bolus. Log." 

Somehow we will make it through the holidays.  We will survive the results of another diabetes report card (aka the A1c results).  We hopefully will even survive puberty!

May your house be filled with love, laughter and great blood sugar readings this holiday season! And the best present of all? Let's hope that Diabetes takes a permanent vacation soon from all of our lives! Merry Christmas!

Just another night with Diabetes.

"Click"
Then the sound of liquid hitting the toilet.
My son is high.
Its three in the morning. Of course he is high but he must be really high to have woken up to use the washroom.
I get out of bed as well.
"Have you tested?"
"No, my site has a blockage."
"Did you change the site?"
"No, its working now."
"If it said that there was a blockage, its not just going to go away. You are going to have to change the site."
"No, I am fine."  "How did you know the site was blocked?"
"It alarmed."
"It alarmed and you woke up????" Good heavens there could be hope for him yet! Nothing wakes this child up.
"Yes I woke up. I checked the tubing. There was a lot of air.  Must have been an air lock."

Okay Mr. Fix-it, we will see in a few minutes.

When my son gets out of the washroom, I am sitting on his bed armed with his glucometer. I pass it over to him and he tests. 28.6mmol (515mgdl).  I pass over the ketone meter.  This is not going to be nice.  Small ketones...and its 3am.  We both want sleep.

My son begins to correct for the 28.6.  Mom is still thinking that this will not work and we need a new site but what does Mom know? Oh, it turns out Mom knows a lot.  The correction stops.  "Blockage".  Its good to be right because I will feel better with a new site. The fact that we just put in a new site less than 4 hours ago makes me want to cry but since the cost of sites is currently covered by our provincial government, the financial pain is eased at least. It still hurts to know my son has to put another hole in his body...again.

"No more stomach.  We are doing a leg this time." I am told.

I also am told that I get to do the injection.  Why me? He does this all of the time.  I am guessing because its 3am and he figures I am a lot more used to being up at this time than he is.  Sad but true.

I jab his leg. 
He corrects.
He pulls up the covers and heads off to sleep.
I shuffle across the hall to do the same.
I will wake to test again soon.
The site is good.
Its just another night with diabetes.