Saturday, November 28, 2009

Tag YOUR It - My Turn

1. Do you like bleu cheese? NO!

2. Have you ever smoked? NO!

3. Do you own a gun? No

4. Favorite type of Food? American

5. Favorite type of music? Contemporary Christian, Country, Christmas

6. What do you think of hot dog? I don’t eat them, can’t stand the smell of them, but still make them for those I love.

7. Favorite Christmas movie? White Christmas and Charlie Brown Christmas

8. What do you prefer to drink in the morning? Orange Juice or water

9. Can you do push ups? I am sure I can

10. What’s your favorite piece of jewelry? My wedding ring

11. Favorite hobby? Taking Photos, knitting (like I have time for that!), and shopping!

12. Do you have A. D. D.? No

13. Do you wear glasses/contacts? No

14. Middle name? Diane

15. Name 3 thoughts at this exact moment: 1) I am tired of being sick! 2) What am I going to wear to the wedding this afternoon? 3) What cute outfit should Savannah wear to the wedding this afternoon?

16. Name 3 drinks you regularly drink: Water, root beer, and sprite (all with no caffeine while I am still nursing, otherwise Coke might be on that list)

17. Current worry? How will my extended family handle Christmas for my grandparents this year when we are not all getting along very well this year?

18. Current hate right now? I hate that my mom got sick from all of us and ended up staying up stairs for Thanksgiving dinner yesterday. It was not the same without her.

19. Favorite place to be? Home with my family

20. How did you bring in the new year? Pretty sure I was sleeping when the ball dropped

21. Someplace you’d like to go? Back to Disneyland with my family

22. Name three people who will complete this…Anyone who has not yet completed it. :)

23. Do you own slippers? No, it does not get THAT cold in AZ.

24. What color shirt are you wearing? Grey

25. Do you like sleeping on satin sheets? Not really, they are too slippery and my hair ends up full of static

26. Can you whistle? No

27. Where are you now? At my desk in the front room

28. Would you be a pirate? Not really my style

29. What songs do you sing in the shower? None, who has time for that?

30. Favorite Girl’s Name? Savannah ( I have LOVED the name since High School)

31. Favorite boy’s name? Zane, Liam, Braeden (Liam and Braeden were other choices before we picked Zane)

32. What is in your pocket right now? No pockets, still wearing jammies

33. Last thing that made you laugh? Savannah’s crazy hair this morning, she had pig talis yesterday which has left her hair quite entertaining this morning

34. What vehicle do you drive? Toyota RAV 4

35. Worst injury you've ever had? Broke my knee when I was 10. I was riding on the handle bars of my bike while a friend was riding, she ran us into the back of a parked car. :)

36. Do you love where you live? Yes and No, I love living near my family, but could do without the summer weather here

37. How many TVs do you have in your house? 3

38. How many computers do you have in your house? 3

39. If you changed your job, what would it be? If I weren’t a teacher, I am sure I would still be doing something with kids

40. If you were granted three wishes, what would they be? 1) A cure for Diabetes of course. 2) To never have to worry about money again 3) To be able to travel anywhere I want, whenever I want

Thursday, November 26, 2009

Adjusting we will go...

Why do I always feel like I am adjusting something?! Things were running pretty smoothly for a few weeks now, no adjustments to speak of, which for us was very unusual.


Then all of a sudden this week we started seeing high numbers. Many in the 300’s. All day long! I usually wait a day or two before making changes to make sure we are really seeing a problem and not just food issues.


It is almost impossible to do a fasting basal test on The Superhero due to his age. I can’t really starve him. So, when making changes, I usually increase the basal if it is an all, or most of the day, thing.


So, when numbers start running high consistently, it must be time for change! When making changes for him I usually only increase basals by 0.025 per hour from where they were. (thank you Animas for small basal increments!)


The Superhero seems to be super sensitive to insulin and any larger change would cause him to crash. I am always nervous on basal change day. Will it work? Will it be too much? Will we need to increase more?


Lucky for me, this time, everything seems to be working out PERFECTLY!


He woke up at 150. Perfect!


He was 183 at lunch, with a little insulin still on board! Perfect!


After nap, he was 138! Again, perfect! Yeah!


I LOVE when the changes seem to be working!

At dinner, he was 95. Now I have to figure out why he dropped so much before dinner. Don’t get me wrong, 95 is a great number, but our target was 150.


So more adjusting must need to be done. Or maybe we had dinner too close to his snack and the snack was still bringing him up while the insulin was bringing it down. Or maybe it was a fluke. I will have to figure this out, again.



I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving! We will be having our dinner tomorrow and again on Sunday. I am hoping all of the yummy food will not give us too much trouble.

Wednesday, November 25, 2009

Welcome To Holland...

Shortly after The Superhero was diagnosed with T1 Diabetes I read "Welcome To Holland". I ended up printing it out on nice paper and posting it on my fridge. I like to read it from time to time. It helps me realize that Holland is not that bad, just different that what might have been planned.


I am glad I get to have so many people join me on my journey in Holland, even if that is not where we planned on ending up.



Enjoy...



WELCOME TO HOLLAND

by
Emily Perl Kingsley.

I am often asked to describe the experience of raising a child with a chronic medical condition or disability - to try to help people who have not shared that unique experience to understand it, to imagine how it would feel. It's like this......

When you're going to have a baby, it's like planning a fabulous vacation trip - to Italy. You buy a bunch of guide books and make your wonderful plans. The Coliseum. The Michelangelo David. The gondolas in Venice. You may learn some handy phrases in Italian. It's all very exciting.

After months of eager anticipation, the day finally arrives. You pack your bags and off you go. Several hours later, the plane lands. The stewardess comes in and says, "Welcome to Holland."

"Holland?!?" you say. "What do you mean Holland?? I signed up for Italy! I'm supposed to be in Italy. All my life I've dreamed of going to Italy."

But there's been a change in the flight plan. They've landed in Holland and there you must stay.

The important thing is that they haven't taken you to a horrible, disgusting, filthy place, full of pestilence, famine and disease. It's just a different place.

So you must go out and buy new guide books. And you must learn a whole new language. And you will meet a whole new group of people you would never have met.

It's just a different place. It's slower-paced than Italy, less flashy than Italy. But after you've been there for a while and you catch your breath, you look around.... and you begin to notice that Holland has windmills....and Holland has tulips. Holland even has Rembrandts.

But everyone you know is busy coming and going from Italy... and they're all bragging about what a wonderful time they had there. And for the rest of your life, you will say "Yes, that's where I was supposed to go. That's what I had planned."

And the pain of that will never, ever, ever, ever go away... because the loss of that dream is a very very significant loss.

But... if you spend your life mourning the fact that you didn't get to Italy, you may never be free to enjoy the very special, the very lovely things ... about Holland.

Tuesday, November 24, 2009

Ketones and IV Fluids, Part 2...

It was 2:30am by the time they left. I tried to go back to sleep. I knew he was in good hands with his Daddy and Pompa, but I still felt SO guilty. His mommy should be there for him.


I kept texting with my dad to see how things were going, instead of sleeping. BG was going up and ketones were going up. The ER docs had no clue what to do with regards to the Diabetes.


They also did not have a blood ketone meter. I am SO thankful I sent ours with them. BG had gone up to 360 and ketones were 2.1. The ER docs did nothing for the BG. The Daddy bolused The Superhero for the BG to get him to come down. The nurses were very upset that he did this without telling them.


They did get and IV with fluids started. They took some blood to run some tests. They were testing to see how much, if any, acid was in his blood. This would determine if we would have to stay for 24 hours or if he could go home soon.


The blood came back and it was determined that he was already in mild DKA because he did in fact have acid in his blood. They would keep him for 24 hours.


I was anxiously waiting at home for The Princess to wake up so I could nurse her and then head to the hospital. I ended up waking her up to nurse her, since she actually decided to sleep longer than normal. I fed her and then my mom took over sitting here with her so I could go see my little man.



I got to the hospital and went into his room. He was lying in his bed with his Pompa (my dad) watching a movie. He looked at me and did not make a sound. All I saw were tears coming out of my poor little man’s eyes. (Just picturing him with the tears, is bringing tears to my eyes all over again!) I could tell he was happy to see me and sad for all they had to put him through already. He showed me his IV on his hand. I laid in bed with him for a while.


Over the next several hours, we had the endo on call and the pediatrician from the hospital come in to visit. I asked what we needed to do to get him home. They wanted him to be able to hold down food and get rid of the ketones. I verified that if he did this before 24 hours was up that we would be able to go home. They assured me that we could go home once those two things happened.



He ate breakfast and kept it down. Still had small ketones, so we continued watching movies to pass the time until they checked again.


He ate lunch and kept it down. Ketones were gone! Woo Hoo! We get to go home, or so we thought!



The endo was fine with us going home. The pediatrician at the hospital on the other hand was not. She wanted his BG to be back in range. He had been running higher all day. Any parent of a kid with Diabetes (or anyone with common sense) knows that little to no activity all day, fatty hospital foods, and the dreaded breakfast spike WILL cause BG to run higher. It did not matter what we did, though we were cautious of dosing amounts of insulin because he can be very sensitive. He was running high ALL day! No matter what we did. He was high.


Because of the higher BG’s, the pediatrician did not want us to bring him home until he was down into the 200’s again. She said she would think about it after he had dinner. I explained to the nurse (because she was the in between person, since the doc would not come talk to me herself) that if he eats dinner, he will be high from the hospital food, again, and we would be continuing the cycle.


After going back and forth for a couple of hours the endo on call convinced the pediatrician that we knew what we were doing and she agreed to send us home.


So, after all this, I have learned a few things…

1) If The Superhero has a fever and is appearing to come down with something, do NOT decrease his basals if he refuses to eat and BG is low.

2) Get him to eat ANYTHING to be able to give him insulin so ketones do not develop.

3) Get the prescription filled for the anti- nausea medicine.

4) Bring ketone meter to hospital, since they have no clue what one is. Urine ketones are not current/accurate.

5) Give your child insulin if his BG is above target in the hospital, despite the nurses freaking out.

6) Convince the pediatrician that YOU know more about Diabetes than she does.


And last but not least…

7) The Superhero thinks it is REALLY cool when Mommy catches his pee in a cup. :)



I REALLY hope we can avoid the hospital in the future, but am also pretty sure, this will be the first of many visits for The Superhero.

Ketones and IV Fluids, Part 1 (part 2 to come later this afternoon/evening)

Since I am in the process of catching up on some blogging, I decided it would be good to document our most recent trip to the ER/hospital for The Superhero.


On October 29, 2009 The Superhero woke up from his nap with a fever, 101.5 (or around there).


I assumed it was similar to the one The Princess had had a few days prior. She had the fever one afternoon and it was gone and she was back to normal by the next morning.


He was definitely acting sick. He spent the afternoon lying on the couch. He did eat his snack, but then refused to eat any dinner. His blood sugar was ok at that time, so we let him skip dinner.


He fell asleep on the couch around 6:00pm. We tested his BG and he was starting to drop, somewhere around 100 at that time. We did a temp basal decrease on his pump for a couple of hours to get his BG up to a more comfortable sleeping number.


Re-check a bit later and his BG was coming up some. We checked his ketones with the blood ketone meter and he had small ketones at that time. We figure this was due to the temp basal decrease and not eating dinner combo. He has barely had any insulin all afternoon/evening.



I went to bed and told my husband to check him in a bit and keep an eye on the ketones. Well, The Superhero woke up around 10:30 not feeling well. He stayed on the couch with Daddy for a bit. His blood sugar was at or below his range, so no insulin was given. Ketones were climbing up to the moderate-high range. My husband was not sure how high on the blood meter was too high, so he waited to wake me up.



Around 11:30pm I wake up to the sound of The Superhero throwing up all over the living room floor. I find out that his ketones were now in the large category and his BG was in range. He was not keeping anything down. We kept trying to get him to drink ANYTHING we could find. He was not interested.



We called the endo on call, just to make sure we were doing everything we could/ should do. At that time, we were. Pushing fluids. He even ate a cracker or two. She said if he threw up again to bring him into the ER for an IV. We REALLY wanted to attempt to get through this at home on our own.



We continued to push fluids. We checked his BG and ketone levels A LOT! He continued to have ketones in the Very LARGE category. (I think they got as high as 1.5 at home).



He started to doze off on the couch again. Around 2:00am or so, he woke up and said he did not feel good. Then he threw up again.



That was it; we knew we had to take him in for fluids. I called my dad to see if he could go with The Superhero and my husband since I am still nursing and The Princess would be up anytime to eat.



Off to the ER they went!

Monday, November 23, 2009

Shoes

First of all, I LOVE having a little girl! (I love my little man too, but girl shopping is the BEST!)


In August we went to the shoe store to buy The Princess’ 1st shoes. She was showing signs that she would be walking soon and I wanted to be prepared with shoes. I planned on getting a pair for right then and a pair or two for winter.


We ended up with 6, yes S-I-X pairs of shoes for her. How did we end up with 6 you ask?


Well, we needed casual ones,


white ones,


black ones,



brown ones,


tennis shoes,


and one extra pair just because they were cute!

I had the best time shopping for her shoes. I am VERY thankful for the Stride Rite Outlet store, so I can save money while going overboard on shoe buying.


I can’t wait until she outgrows them so we can get more.

Sunday, November 22, 2009

Long Time, No Blog

Long Time, No Blog


Wow, it has been WAY too long since I wrote a blog! I even started this blog weeks ago and am just now getting around to getting it ready to post!


My family and I have been attending New Life Community Church for some time now. Today we just finished a series on No Regrets. This included No Regrets Life, No Regrets Dating, No Regrets Marriage, No Regrets Kids, No Regrets God, and a No Regrets Death.


All this talk about No Regrets made me realize that I do not want to regret not blogging and documenting our lives. The blog can serve as a timeline of events happening in our lives and I want to have that for the kids to read through in the future.


So, from today forward, I am hoping to Blog everyday. Even if there is not much to blog about, I would like to write about something.


Here are some updates since my last Blog in July (more details to come about each event)…

August: We bought The Princess her first shoes.






















September: The Princess learns to walk and gets her first haircut.









October: My little princess turns 1 and Halloween/Trick or Treating.





















November: Trip to Disneyland :)






Until next time…

“The Mommy”
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