So proud!

So, I know I'm kind of biased, but hey...this is my blog, so I'm allowed to be proud of my 6 year-old. :)

On Saturday, Adam had a play date with a friend from kindergarten. We've had his little buddy over quite a few times, but this was the very first time he was going to his friend's house to play. And admittedly, I don't know the mom *that* well, but we've had quite a few great conversations and she was so open to learning about what she needed to do for Adam to hang out over there. I had a good feeling about it, so I dropped him off and gave a few instructions and I am proud to say that it went so well!

We have his Dexcom in this week, so that helped. :) When I dropped him off, his BG was 195, and I was good with that, because I knew they were going to do the slip-n-slide in the backyard. I got one text from the mom about an hour and a half into it, and she said that he was 209 and they were having snacks. I didn't ask what they were eating...but I knew Adam was going to be just fine. She texted me again and said that Adam asked for the carb counts for everything they ate and bolused himself for everything! She was impressed he knew so much. :) When I looked at his PDM, I saw there were 3 boluses...and he obviously did a great job because when he got home, his BG was 167.

I told him how I was so proud of him for doing such a great job and for knowing exactly what to do. And he looked at me and said, "Well, MOM...you taught me how to do it....duh!!"

Well, I guess I did! I know we do this every day, but honestly at 6 years old, I do 95% of his care, because I don't want to burden him. But knowing that he is moving towards being able to care for himself? Amazing. Sad in a way that I feel like it is A LOT for a 6 year old to have to deal with, but I'm so proud that he can do it and doesn't seem to feel like it is a burden at this point.

I am enjoying having the Dexcom back - I think I will be using it more this summer. When it is working well, I notice we aren't having to test him as much and since we have been running out of our allotted 300 test strips each month, that is a blessing.

Last night we went on a night hike - scorpion hunting! It was so much fun (even though it was still blasted hot out!) and I didn't worry one bit since Adam had his Dex on. We saw lots of these little critters:

I am also loving the fact that our cat likes to catch scorpions. The other night I was on the couch and I saw Macy playing with...something...right by Jason's chair. I looked a bit closer and saw she was tangling with a scorpion! I told my barefoot husband to go get a big shoe...and we took care of it. Just a few "perks" of living in the desert, lol!

I am so proud of my boy. Sure, he drives me cuh-ray-zay sometimes, but in a way, having diabetes makes him a much more mature kid at times (AT TIMES...the kid can fart on command like nobody's business) I hope that I can keep a good balance for him of teaching him how to care for himself....while still letting him be a kid.

It's a hard balance, but at this point, I'm feeling good about it.

Our 1st Trip to the Water Park...

There are plenty of things that scare me about diabetes. But the day-to-day stuff? I can pretty much handle it. Except....

...for the water park.

I have been dreading this day for a long time. The day when we'd head to a water park for the day with friends and deal with a spastic enthusiastic 6 year-old AND diabetes. The last time we went to a water park was when Sydney was like 2 years old or something, and it was for a company event. I'm not a huge water park fan in general, but I knew the day was coming when they'd be old enough to want to go...and who am I to say no? :)

I actually felt sick to my stomach this morning. And really, I don't get too rattled about blood sugars anymore. I just had no idea what the day would turn out like. Would it be like last night? Adam swam in the late afternoon/evening, out of the pool his BG was 129, Jason took the kids out for ice cream, I did an extended bolus for 40 carbs, 2 hours later he was 129, 1 hour after that he was 160 and 1 hour after that he was 145. Take THAT swimming and ice cream!

Or would it be like last Friday when he had lunch, swam and one hour into it his BG was 44?

That's the problem. You just never know.

So today went well overall. I bought some of the Dex4 glucose drinks and I tucked one in the pocket of his swim trunks. That way if we were away from our stuff and he said he felt low, he could just down that real fast.

Adam had lunch before we left and when we got there his BG was 157. The level of excitement on his face led me to believe he'd be fairly spastic ENTHUSIASTIC in the wave pool. I suspended his insulin (he still had well over an hour's worth of IOB) and gave him a juice box.

I followed him into the wave pool and he was just ALL OVER THE PLACE. I must have looked like a maniac yelling, "ADAM, SLOW DOWN!" "ADAM, STOP FLAILING AROUND!" "ADAM...eh...forget it..." He's a good swimmer, but this was his first time in a wave pool, so I was worried about him drowning AND low blood sugar. :)

He was so crazy that when we got out of the wave pool and were waiting for our friends, I got them ice cream. I didn't bolus him because....hey...water park. I figured the fat would help keep some carbs in his system.

After about an hour of swimming, sliding and jumping across lily pads, I tested him and got a whopping 407. Whoops. Guess I screwed that one up. I started up his basal again at about 50% and let him swim some more.

Can you spot his pod??

Then I tested him again half an hour later...527. FUD. Apparently I overdid the carbs. But really....I'm thinking some of this was adrenaline because I really didn't give him THAT much extra. Weird.

So I bolused him up real good and we went on our merry way. Is it awful to say that I had more fun after that, because I knew he wasn't going to go low?

I have to share a funny story. Sydney was off with her friend and I was watching Adam jump across those lily pad things. I told him that I had to go to the bathroom, so he had to come with me. This is what he tells me,

"MOM. There are LIFEGUARDS here. If I'm low I will tell them. Go to the bathroom and when you come back you will see that I'm not dead."

Well, okie dokie then. 

At first I thought this was hilarious, but then I realized that it's actually kinda sad that he knows I worry something bad is going to happen just because he's swimming. Luckily, he said it in a joking way, and he really, truly had a BLAST today, which was the goal. Even though I was a bit freakish about it, I'm not going to tell him that he can't do anything because of dumb ol' diabetes.

On that note...I am TIRED. Like dog tired. I am thinking we will all sleep good tonight.

Unless all that activity decides to start catching up with him later...it's almost bedtime and he's 117.

It's always there...

Lately it seems like I haven't complained much about diabetes on my blog. I really, really try not to make it the focus of our lives, but lately I'm finding the irritation and anxiety about it all creeping back in.

Adam's numbers haven't been so great since school got out and I'm not sure what it is....basal? Change in activity? Too much grazing? Just your basic unpredictability.

And I like predictability.

Which is pretty hilarious, since diabetes is the one disease that is anything BUT predictable, right?

I need to buckle down and do some logging. Some basal testing. Some changing of what goes in that kid's mouth. But I'm tired. I want a break. I don't want to think about it.

People ask if we want to go spend a day at the waterpark and they see me hesitate...it's not because I don't want to go...I do! But the WORK involved in keeping Adam safe there is just too exhausting to me to think about. I know he will have a blast, but he will resent my hovering, the juice-pushing, and constant finger-pricking.

It's not even just that....its EVERYTHING. I read Hallie's post yesterday and as I read it I kept thinking, "yes...yes...YES!" That is how I am feeling.

"Diabetes is like throwing a pebble into a pond.  The ripples go on and on and on...

And it's hard because most of the people who were in your life BEFORE don't see all those ripples.  They can't comprehend how those ripples end up touching every part of your life.

Those ripples push you out into the middle of the pond.  And it's lonely there. 

You had a life back on the shore but when you look back that seems like so long ago you really can't remember it.  And you're different now anyway."

There are so many things I'd love to do. School, perhaps a job, a vacation with my husband...things that before diabetes would not have been a problem. I mean, if the idea of planning for a waterpark visit makes me exhausted, how in the world would I do any of those other things?

I think a lot of people don't realize what a huge responsibility it is to be the parent of a child with diabetes. You are not only responsible for guiding, teaching and nurturing them into good people...but you have the added pressure of keeping them alive every single day.  And it's all up to you to make sure he goes into adulthood with a healthy body and able to go on the rest of his life taking care of himself.

I am blessed that I do have a wonderful circle of friends that understand (or most definitely try to understand) what we go through. Even two years into this, I have friends who will sometimes stop and say, "dang...this is a lot of work!" But as I was explaining how Adam's pump works in detail to a new-ish friend the other day...I just got tired. I didn't want to explain it anymore. After 2 years of it, I am done.

So while yes...things are going well, sometimes I start to wallow again and get really, really, really irritated by diabetes' presence in our lives. 

Summer...

Life is good...

Podding makes summer with diabetes just a bit easier...

There's time for relaxing and reading...here is my sweet 8 (almost 9!) year old girl. Her goal for the summer is for us to read the first 4 Harry Potter books together (I am the last avid reader on earth to read the series, I think!) She finished book one the other day and we watched the movie together as a family. She's moved on to book 2 (I catch up to her by reading at night after she is in bed. :)

I am so excited to hear about all of our D-friends heading to camp for the first time. I cannot wait until Adam is old enough to go and find that sense of understanding and community for himself. Just a few more years!

Summer is good.*



*Ask me again in mid-July, when it's 115 degrees out and my kids are bored beyond belief with no vacation in sight. I'll be the one in the corner, counting the days until school starts... :)

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. :)

A little time to update

Here I sit...empty house, quiet (finally!) so I thought I'd do a rambling, random blog update. :)

We had Adam's 6th birthday 2 weeks ago. I have to say, it was a FANTASTIC day and my favorite birthday party to date. We had a "reptile guy" come to our house to do a presentation for the kids and they were enthralled for an entire hour.

Let's just say it was a 6 year old boy's dream. :) He had a great day and I can't believe my boy is SIX!

I also cannot believe we only have one month left of school. I'm sad...I like my little boy being a kindergartener. He had had a fabulous year - he's made lots of friends, learned a lot (I still can't get over how well he can read! I just love this age.) And while I was nervous at the beginning of the year diabetes-wise, this second half of the year has been really smooth. We have a great routine in place and the nurse and health assistant know Adam well enough now to know all of his diabetic "quirks" so to speak...for example, in the afternoon, if his BG is a "perfect" 100...they know that likely he will drop and will give him a little boost. That kind of stuff is priceless to me that they know him so well now. Next year should be even better since the teacher he will have is wonderful, already knows him well (she taught Sydney for 1st grade) and is ready for the challenge.