He's cured! (But just at lunchtime, apparently...)

Arrrgghhhegghhehhe.

We have been battling lows. CONSTANTLY for the past 3 weeks or so. I kept thinking they would go away, but I finally started changing some things and he's still been going low.

I suppose there is one constant thing about diabetes. It is never constant.

No matter how hard you try.

I had Adam having perfectly wonderful numbers for the first month of school. The second month? Poor kid is low every single afternoon. While this may mean his A1c will be fantastic in December, I do not like all of the lows that have contributed to it.

He started out the school year with an insulin to carb ratio of 1:19 for lunchtime. That's what worked this summer. Over the past 3 weeks, I have decreased it every few days, and tonight, after another 64 this afternoon at school (causing him to miss PE again because after 15 minutes he was 61...) I changed his I:C ratio for lunch to 1:27. If that doesn't do it....well then I give.

I GIVE.

He's also on a completely different basal pattern. During the school day he was getting about .40 units per hour. Now? I have him at .25 units per hour.

I have people every single day ask me, "Why does this happen?" Why? Why is he going low?

And I'm at a loss for words. I don't even know how to begin to explain it, so I just don't. I just say that diabetes is unpredictable. But that kind of makes me feel like a failure, that I can't "fix" my kid like it seems like everyone wants to.

If I hear the phrase, "Is he stable now?" I think I may scream. I know you all know what I mean. 

We have only had one small issue this year so far. With the increasing amount of lows (that I am desperately trying to get under control), he has been waiting in class while feeling low because he doesn't want to interrupt his teacher.

Now, I LOVE and adore his teacher. As does Adam.  I respect her immensely and I hand-picked her to be Adam's teacher.  He is super comfortable with her! But there are quite a few...uh..."troublemakers" in Adam's class and he seems to feel this responsibility to NOT bother his teacher. She has repeatedly told him that it is FINE to interrupt her, but that is just not his in his character, no matter how much I drill into him that he must go to the nurse if he feels low. As a result, he's ended up in the health office with some lows in the 40's.

Our wonderful nurse has brought it up to me a few times that Adam will say that he doesn't want to interrupt, so she suggested that we develop a special "signal" with the teacher vs. just having Adam hold up his hand while she is teaching.

We ended up having Adam decorate 3 green cards with his favorite Ninjago stickers that I laminated. When he is feeling low during class time, all he has to do is raise his card in the air and his teacher will automatically send him and his buddy to the health office. Also, this will help when she is speaking to another adult (he won't interrupt) so all he has to do is hand her the card and she will immediately know that he needs to go to the nurse immediately.

He is happy with this arrangement, so I hope it helps! I've realized that despite the fact that we've already had one school year under our belt, each year will be very different, and we'll need to find new strategies to make diabetes run as smooth as possible.

Now, if we could just figure out these afternoon lows, I'd be a happy camper!

2012 JDRF Walk Video!

Well, this year I got my act together and created a JDRF Walk video for the first time. I'm not sure what prompted me to do it...but at 9pm one night I got a bug up my a$$ and finished it by 1am. When I go, I go hard. :) Anyway, Adam is excited for the walk this year and I thought it might help garner some extra donations by creating a video. I've already had a few of my friends tell me that it was SO unfair to make them cry by posting videos of my kid on Facebook. :)

In other news, Adam's blood sugars have been WHACKADOODLE. Yes, I used that word again. We had such a great first month at school, now his blowing 40's left and right for no reason (thanks, T1D).

I'm hesitant to make across-the-board changes, so I set up a separate basal profile to see if that would help, but it seems like he's still low before lunch and after lunch. So tonight I'll be changing those I:C ratios, because there is nothing sadder than walking into the health office to see your kiddo in tears because he's low and he's missing P.E. on ROPES DAY. Sigh. Apparently ropes day is a very big deal to a 1st grader. :)

He could be sick. I just had the nastiest case of strep throat this past weekend, and I noticed that he had a bit of a rash, but a negative rapid strep test. So he was put on antibiotics anyway.

Other than that, the school year is going great! Both kids are thriving and having a blast in school, which makes me so happy.