Just when you think you have it all together...

...diabetes kicks you in the a$$.

Today was one of our first "fun" days planned for summer. A trip to Pump it Up (indoor bounce place) and a day with some wonderful friends.

We arrive at the bounce place at 10am, and I do a pre-bounce BG check. And what do I see?

42.

Oh yeah. I have no idea what happened this morning, but being 42 BEFORE even bouncing was not good. Since I didn't expect to have an issue today, all I had with me was glucose tabs, cookies, fruit snacks and a Balance bar.

Of course, the boy child wanted none of this. So I hit the vending machine, looking for some juice.

Ooops...I don't have any cash.

I frantically butt in line and ask the cashier lady if there is any way I can get a juice...my son is diabetic, very low..blah, blah, blah. She graciously uses the key to open the vending machine and gets me a 72 carb Minute Maid fruit punch. And then I use my debit card to pay her for the $1.25. :)

So he drinks half...eats the fruit snacks AND a glucose tab and he runs off to bounce. I figure he's got about 50 carbs at least rushing into his body AND I turned his basal down to minus 85%.

Twenty minutes later, he's 97. Whew. He drinks the rest of the fruit punch (about 30 more carbs).

I test him AGAIN in 20 minutes. He's 67.

Oy vey!! I felt like a rookie today...I was pretty much out of sugar and I had no idea what was going to happen from here on out. Luckily, the kiddos were already exhausted so we headed off to lunch.

So what does any sane diabetic mom do in the afternoon? When the kids beg to swim, I say SURE!!!

And then Adam's pod promptly falls off.

Some days you just have to laugh. We were about a half an hour from home, and OF COURSE I had no extra pod with me. Since it was happy hour at Sonic, I gave him an injection and we got our half-price slushies, with my resolve to put a pod on as soon as we got home.

His BG was 189 when we got home, so I felt I could wait a bit and put numbing cream on because Adam asked (sometimes he does, and sometimes he doesn't. He was tired, and I obliged.)

But THEN....Jason comes downstairs and says, "It's five minutes until karate...Adam do you want to go???" Of course he's desperate to go...and I have no time to put a pod on. I take a chance and let him go without a pod (the class is a half an hour long, and is literally 2 minutes from our house.)

Today was so weird. :) So he got home from karate...BG is 250 and I get a pod on him finally.

Then hubby wants to go to Costco for shopping and dinner. And ya'll know that means PIZZA.

Who knows what will happen tonight with his BG!! But I just have to laugh. And my buddy keeps me laughing because today, he put on ALL of his diabetes bracelets because....well, just because, I guess.

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. :)