Friday, December 24, 2010

We wish you a Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas from our home to yours.
Thank you all for helping me through this journey.
Onward and upward....2011, here we come!


Thursday, December 23, 2010

Pump start date!

Well, we finally have a pump start date - January 7th. Luckily our endo lets us jump right to insulin if we feel comfortable, so we don't have to do a saline trial. I am getting very excited and can't wait to start.

Since Adam's surgery, his numbers have been all over the place and I haven't been able to get things back to the "normal" that they were before. I guess that's just diabetes. ::shrug::

I still feel like this is all a dream I am going to wake up from. I read your blogs…I identify, I relate and then I sit back and go whoa…this is me. This is my life. This is HIS life. He has a disease. It is not going away. And I still can’t fucking believe it. I had a great talk with a friend last night and I think I haven't quite reached the acceptance stage yet.


All I want for Christmas is to feel normal again. I want to go back to the person I was 4 months ago. No one likes the person I am now, least of all me. I am changed. Our family is changed. And while in the future, I may see some things as a blessing, I don’t feel as if we are changed for the better and that hurts.


Parenting is the single thing that brings me to my knees on a daily basis. Even before Adam’s diagnosis, you walk around each day as a parent, wondering how you are going to screw them up that day.


Parenting a diabetic child and his sibling is even harder. I know you all understand.


So, with that, I am looking forward to the new year. I am ready to bid good riddance to this year and I am praying that I will be able to find my new self this next year. And hopefully I'll like that person a whole lot more than I like this one.

Monday, December 20, 2010

What NOT to say to the parent of a Type 1 Diabetic



Joanne is famous!!! Loved this video the first time I saw it (Joanne...you are so clever!) and now it is on Kerri's Six Until Me blog! Way to go, Joanne! :)

Friday, December 10, 2010

Neomycin and Polymyxin B Sulfates and Dexamethasone ophthalmic ointment

Say that five times fast. :)

That, my friends, is what has been wreaking havoc on our lives the last few days. No one told me that the eye oinment that we are putting in Adam's eye is a freaking STEROID! It's a tiny amount 2x a day, but I'm gathering it's enough to cause the high BGs. You think? It didn't even click until my neighbor with T1D suggested that his surgeon had put a steriod in his eye during the surgery. Then it finally dawned on me to check the ointment.

Of course, I figured this out after I sent yet another long-winded email to Adam's endo. Whoops. So I sent him another one telling him that I figured it out. I think he's gonna get sick of me. :)

I am emotionally exhausted. I feel like I've been initiated into the REAL diabetes fraternity now and have just been hazed.

I need a drink. And a nap.

ps...his endo just emailed me back. Love that man. We are going to increase his Levemir again and adjust his carb ratios too - he thinks that the ointment is a problem, but also the stress to his body from the surgery.

Wednesday, December 8, 2010

The ugliest 24 hours in blood sugar-land



This is the nastiest looking graph for a D-mama. 24 hours above the dotted line.


This was a first for us after 3 months of diabetes. There's a first time for everything, right? I think the anesthesia really did a number on him, because no matter how much insulin I gave him, he wouldn't budge. His endo had me up his Levemir by one unit and lower his carb ratio, but today we still only got below 200 once. He's now sleeping and back up to 268. Over the last few months, we've given him an average of 7 units of insulin a day, including his Levemir. Today he got about 18 units total. Cuh-ray-zay.

Or he could be fighting infection....or he could just be really needing more insulin. There are so many variables. I am SO SO glad we had the Dex for the surgery. I feel like I can keep better tabs on him. He's just had some trace amounts of ketones, but I guess that could make him more insulin resistant too.

Adam's doing okay. His eye looks soooo painful and basically the entire white of his eye is blood red. He's not complaining about it, so I know it just looks worse than it is. He's still his spunky self.


It's back to the numbers game tomorrow. Hopefully they will be on our side!

Tuesday, December 7, 2010

It's over! Whew.

So remember my post last night when I said I was going to scoop my baby up and sleep with him all night?

Yeah. As my mom says, "no good deed goes unpunished." :)

I love snuggling with my little guy. And he REALLY likes to snuggle me too. So much so that he has to have my arm around him so he can rest his head on my arm (and leg in my face, etc. etc.) He slept on my arm all night long and when I woke up this morning and moved too quick...pain shot through my arm and into my shoulders and upper back. I couldn't look down or to my right.

So here I am after a looong day, sitting in my recliner with a heating pad on my neck. And a great friend just stopped by to massage my neck with some torture device she had (but it felt good!) and rubbed it with Tiger Balm. Now...you know you've got a good friend when she comes over after the kids are in bed to rub Tiger Balm on your sore neck!

Anyway, the surgery went well. Having T1D allows for certain perks - being first in line for surgery! The anesthesiologist was thrilled to see the Dexcom and he said that normally he'd run glucose through his IV, but since we had the Dex, we didn't need to do that (and Adam had been running high anyway.) I hated when they had to take him away from me. He was so stoic and brave up until that point...he had a death grip on my shirt and kept saying, "but mommy, I scared!" :( There was one other mom waiting there that said Adam made her cry too!

Surgery was 40 minutes and before I knew it, I was back with my baby. The nurse said he was so good - he was very calm waking up from anesthesia. I rubbed his head and belly and just let him know I was there. He was kind of funny for a moment when he said he was thirsty and the nurse got him a cup of water and Adam turned his nose up at it and said, "No! I want OUR water!" Apparently he's a water snob and wanted the water out of my bottle! He gulped that down, so all was good. Silly boy. His eye is all red and swollen...he looks like he's been in a brawl. :)

We were home by 9am, which was nice. He asked for a chocolate shake, (which in retrospect was a bad move, but it's what he wanted) so he had that while I dosed him for it. I could barely move, so we trotted up to my bed and slept for 2 hours until I was woken up by the Dex beeping "HIGH".

And thus began our day of high, high, high. I could not get that kid's blood sugar down under 350 no matter what I did. He's had more insulin today than I've ever given him before. I'm sure this is an after-effect of the anesthesia...and he has had just trace amounts of ketones. I emailed his doctor and since he's actually been high in the morning for the last few days, he had me increase his Levemir and try out a different carb ratio tomorrow. Hopefully that will get him down into a normal range. Speaking of which...I need to go check him now.

Damn. Still 309 at 9:30pm. Stubborn-ass blood sugar.

And in other EXCITING news, our Animas PING Is BeiNg ShiPpEd TOMoRRoW!

Yes, I pulled the trigger. I faxed Adam's paperwork in last Friday and got in touch with the rep today. He said everything is approved and he can have Adam's green (his favorite color!) Ping shipped out ASAP.

Wow! wow. Wow. I am amazed at how fast things have gone....I was honestly expecting both the Dexcom and the pump process to take much longer. And within the span of a few weeks, we have both!

And now I have to get sappy. I couldn't have done it without ALL of you mamas out there. Seriously...you have given me the courage to start this process, to believe that I can do it, to believe that things will be better. Hearing your pump stories and the amazing details you put into your posts have helped me SO MUCH. Reyna posted this last week....and wow. It's like she was speaking directly to me. I have read Wendy's awesome posts on the Ping over and over and over again. I love reading about Laura's experiences with the Omnipod...because I can see us moving onto tubeless in a few years. I loved the Medtronic posts from Meri...'cause I love how simple their pump is and how easy it is to use...but I wanted that damn remote. :)

So thank you, wonderful, amazing ladies of the DOC. You all hold a special place in my heart.

(and, um, I...uh...need y'all more than ever now that the pump is coming to live with us!)

And now I'm off to bed...to read Pumping Insulin.

Insets?

I will post again later tonight about our day, but first....we got our call from Animas and they are shipping out Adam's GREEN pump TOMORROW! Woot!

Here's my question - do I want the Insets or the Inset 30s? The rep seemed to think that we'd want the angled ones, but I told him I needed to ask my D-moms first!

Monday, December 6, 2010

Worry

My life is filled with worry these days. I know when I'm 60, I'm going to be able to tell exactly which wrinkles were formed when I was 35. They will be the deepest ones.

Adam has his eye surgery tomorrow. I have faith that it will be just fine. But frankly, so many things have not been "just fine" for him, that I worry. I still cannot believe that he has Type 1 Diabetes. His other issues were enough. Thankfully, we were able to get his Dexcom in time for the surgery, so I will have more confidence that the anesthesiologist will be on top of his blood sugar during the surgery.

It feels strange here at home tonight. My husband is having an extremely busy time at work - he flew to California today and right now is on his way to Chicago. It's unavoidable, and frankly, that job is what gives us our great insurance, so I don't mind that i have to take Adam alone tomorrow. I kind of prefer it that way - I know how to take care of him and I'm a pretty independent person. My daughter is at my wonderful mom's house for the night...tucked away from my worry and fears. She's having a great time, and Nana will take her to school in the morning.

Later tonight, when I'm too tired to stay awake anymore, I will creep upstairs and scoop up my baby boy from his bed and take him in with me to snuggle for the rest of the night. That will make me happy.

Saturday, December 4, 2010

Feeling sad

I am feeling sad tonight.

And not much of it has to do with diabetes.

Although, I'd love to kick it in the a** because it makes things so damn difficult every day. We've had some wicked lows the last few days - random 50's. And now he's asleep sky-high, because I let him HAVE FUN and eat whatever he wanted at the school's Night at the North Pole event.

I've had too many instances the last few days of realizing that my kids are growing up. They are not babies anymore. They are not toddlers. I have an elementary-aged kiddo and a preschooler that looks like a kindergartener.

I went to the mall with my daughter today and I asked her if she wanted to see Santa this year. She said, "Mom...I think I'm getting too old for that."

Break a momma's heart, why dontcha.

She still believes, but the questions are getting better. More logical, more thought out. As I walked around the mall today, I saw moms with little babies and toddlers in strollers and I was starting to miss that stage. My kiddos and I would head to the mall on a weekday and roam around, hit the play area and just hang out. Especially at Christmastime, when there is so much to look at...so much magic in their eyes. Even a trip to Target was fun to look at all the Christmas stuff.

This year I'm feeling sad about it all. I feel like I waited so long for them to be old enough to do the "fun" stuff during the holidays and now it seems like it is passing by so fast and they are moving on to a different stage already. I could barely get them to sit with me to watch "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" the other day.

We did start a new tradition this year - I took my daughter to see the Nutcracker and she LOVED it. I saw the wonder and sparkle in her eyes and I wanted to freeze that moment.

Because I know that those moments are fleeting.

Sigh. Can't we freeze time for a bit?


Thursday, December 2, 2010

Medtronic & Animas

Today we met with our CDE to go over the pumps. I still think I want the Animas, but I really liked the Medtronic screen and how you don't have to add the extra step of matching the insulin. Does that bother anyone with the Animas? Now that I got to "cop a feel" (ha ha!) and get my hands on the pumps...I kind of like the Medtronic better, but the remote kind of overrides all of that.

The most important part of the meeting was that Adam FINALLY got to see the pumps and saw that the infusion set has just a tiny tube that would be in him...and he wanted to walk out of there with a pump. :)

Now I just have to pick one and place an order....