Saturday, August 31, 2013

3 Years

Three years ago today, THIS happened.

The funny thing is, I don't remember life before diabetes. And I don't think that Adam does, either - heck, it affects the entire family. I wish Sydney didn't feel the need for me to test her blood sugar every time she feels excessively thirsty or hungry or tired. I wish I didn't worry that Adam is developing Celiac disease each time he says his tummy hurts. (Luckily his labs came back last week with no evidence of this - I was a bit worried this time with his excessive lows and complaints of stomach pain.)

We are lucky to have many things that make diabetes easier for Adam. The Omnipod has been a life-changer for him. He continues to never want to go back to a tubed pump. The Dexcom makes my life easier.

And the fricken-fracken new smaller pods are FINALLY on a truck on the way to our house as we speak.

We should be up and running with those in a few days. Heck, we've been waiting so long that right now I can't even remember where I stashed the new PDM. Hmmm. I'd better get looking for that.

Tonight is Adam's choice for a dinner venue. Right now he's leaning towards his favorite pizza joint. We will have fun, we will celebrate the fact that he can eat whatever he wants thanks to his pump and insulin.

And we'll get up tomorrow and do "diabetes" all over again.

Okay, really, I'll get up at 2 am because diabetes never sleeps. :)

Tuesday, August 20, 2013

A Story by Adam

Sometimes I think I'm really sucking at this parenting a child with diabetes thing. Frankly, that's most days. Because even when you visit the endo, and your child's A1c is 7.4, you'd think you'd celebrate, right? (It had crept up to 8.0 earlier in the year). But oh no...you feel bad because the doctor says he's having too many lows.

A mom can't win.

But tonight, I found something that made me sad a little bit, but also made me smile. Adam wrote this "story" in his journal.

"I have Diabetes. It means my pancreas doesn't work well. So I have to test the sugar in my blood."


"Diabetes is tuff. But I can live with it. Hopefully not forever."


"Soon they will come up with a cure for it. Then I will have it no longer." 


"But unfortunately not today. But I am fine with it for now."

 
 "But I still like my life even if it involves Diabetes. It doesn't mean much to me. Okay, maybe a little." :)


"I love my life."


Man, I hope so. Kid, we are going to get you a cure. I love you, buddy.

Saturday, August 10, 2013

Another "first"

Ouch, right?

We had another "first" today, and not the good kind.

Yesterday, Adam's pod came off at school, so I ran over and changed it. Last night, the old site looked really red, so I put some ointment on it and a band-aid.

This morning, he was sitting next to me and when I looked at it, it felt really warm, and it was much more angry looking. I took the band-aid off and I saw oozing pus. :( I cleaned it again, and used a warm compress and covered it up again. I had a bad feeling about it, so I texted this pic to my friend who is a PA, and asked her what I should do. She said I should probably take him to urgent care to get some antibiotics right away.

By this time, he was crying because it hurt so bad. Luckily, our children's hospital has a satellite office for urgent care and we got right in. The doctor agreed something needed to be done, but he also wanted to try and drain it more first and swab it to test for MRSA. Poor Adam. He freaked about the pain so the doctor used a j-tip to try and numb it a bit. He got a little bit out and bandaged him up again. Diagnosis: abscess and cellulitis. He's on Keflex now, and hopefully we won't hear back from the doctor that it is MRSA.

After a milkshake and a warm bath to soak it in, he's feeling much better. I drew a circle around it with a sharpie to make sure it doesn't get worse, but I think we caught it early enough.

After 3 years, this is our first infection! Of course, I'm wondering why, but who knows. He uses his arms for pod sites pretty frequently, so we will give this arm a rest for a month or so. Hopefully this will be the last for awhile.

Adam is now being back to his "boy" self, asking me if there is more pus so he can see it. :) Boys like gross things!

Thanks to the DOC for all the love today!