First year of school with D - complete!

We did it!

We survived the first year at school with diabetes. Adam is now a happy, healthy 1st grader!

I cannot believe kindergarten is over. I have to admit, I am a bit sad. I *love* having a kindergartener - so many exciting firsts, you know? This year, Adam learned to read, learned how to add and subtract and lost his 1st tooth!

Last summer, I was consumed with worry about how school was all going to shake down. Do I regret all the worry? No...it was productive, and while I may have over-planned a bit, it was appreciated by everyone at the school. The first 2 months of school were pretty nerve-wracking. And while I loved helping out at school, I felt like I was there ALL THE TIME.

BUT...that was all worth it. Because I essentially got to train them in person each day on all of Adam's diabetes "quirks." As the year went on, the calls got less and less and I trusted them whole-heartedly with Adam's care. They learned that when Adam's BG was 100 or so in the afternoon...not to trust it! I made lots of changes, and he'd still always go low. So they would automatically give him a little snack. Things like that - or they'd recognize an odd BG pattern and let me know. His teacher recognized his "low face" and would send him down when he was exceptionally quiet ('cause Mr. Social Butterfly was never quiet!) Here's a pic of him at the end of the school year pool party - that kid had no less than 5 kindergarten friends surrounding him at all times, lol!

I love the relationship we have developed with our school and health office. We are very lucky and it is so nice to know that next year will be even better! Even with the pump switch to OmniPod in the middle of the year - they were fully on board with it and learned a whole new system after just learning the Ping a few months before.

So the Pod? We've officially been podding for almost 6 months now and I can honestly say it has been the BEST thing we have ever done for him. He LOVES podding and so do we. Now that we have our "make the pod stick" routine down, we rarely lose pods and we've had only one official "pod failure" (knock on wood!!) But best of all, nothing gets in his way now. No tubes, nothing stuck in his pocket or clipped to his waist, nothing getting pulled on the playground. And no one can see it, which he loves. I don't even care when we get the new smaller pods...because these work so well for us. In the beginning, it took me a few months to love it, but the ease of pod changes has made things so much easier and streamlined for us. And as a bonus, my husband has done more and more pod changes and I have stopped being a control-freak and worrying about him doing it "right." Because you can't really screw up putting on the pod! And I promise I'm not throwing my hubby under the bus...he was perfectly capable of doing Animas Ping site changes, but again...control-freak mama thought she could do it best. At least I can admit it. Love you, honey!!!

We had Adam's Endo appointment a few weeks ago, and his A1c remained the same as last time, 7.7. While I would have loved for it to be lower, I was actually thrilled because in the last 3 months, he grew an inch, broke a bone and had strep throat twice. I'm cool with 7.7! 

Now we have the long, hot summer ahead of us. Already the benefits of swimming with the pod are evident - so much easier to manage than disconnecting all the time and replacing missed basal. I just turn down his basal a bit and he's good to go!

Hopefully I'll be a better blogger this summer....but no promises. :)