Diabetes Meme

It's now my turn with the meme, thanks to my sweet friend Heidi over at D-Tales .

This meme has some serious history. Heidi was tagged by Tracy at The Super Hero & The Princess who was tagged by Candy Hearts...who was tagged by Our Diabetic Life...who was tagged by Houston, We Have a Problem…who was tagged by My Diabetic Child…who was tagged by I am Your Pancreas…who was tagged by Beta Buddies…who was tagged by A Sweet Grace...who accepted the meme challenge from Six Until Me.

What type of diabetes do you have:

Our family has been affected by Type 1 Diabetes.  My 4 year old son was diagnosed with it when he was 27 months old.

When were you diagnosed:

November 10, 2008.

What's your current blood sugar:

I had to call my mother in law for this one.  Sugar Boy and his twin sister stay with her during the day since I work.  She just checked "Linkie" (the nick-name given to our CGMS that Sugar Boy wears) and he is reporting 196.  I'll take it! 

What kind of meter do you use:

We LOVE our Freestyle Lite meter.  Sugar Boy just recently started checking his own sugar, and this meter (ESPECIALLY with the new test strips) makes it VERY easy for a 4 yr old to do that.  It requires a very small sample of blood, and we rarely ever get any sort of error.  Sugar Daddy and I also love it because it has a light on the end of it... which makes checking Sugar Boy's BG in the middle of the night MUCH easier!!

How many times per day do you check your blood sugar:

Before we got out CGMS we would check about 10 times per day.  Now we are able to get away with fewer checks - anywhere from 4-6 times on a good day.  If he is running high or low, though we do more as needed.

What is a "HIGH" number for you:

Anything over 250 is considered high. Personally, though, I prefer if he is under 200.

What do you consider "LOW":

Under 80 is low.  During the night we like him to be somewhere between 125 and 200.  If he is lower than 125 we will usually bring him up a bit.

What is your favorite low blood sugar reaction treater:

It depends on how low he is.  During the day, we use glucose tablets, if he is VERY low, though, or if Linkie reports that he is dropping exceptionally fast, we will use a juice box.  At night its juice all the way.  He never wakes up enough to actually chew a glucose tab, so if we are only bringing him up a tiny bit, I just pull the box before he drinks it all.  He is so used to this during the night that all I have to do is lift his head and he will start sucking in his sleep!  Insert straw and down it goes!

Describe your dream endo:

We LOVE our endo!  Dr. H is amazing!   I feel that the most important thing for an endo to understand and recognize is that they are dealing with PEOPLE - not NUMBERS.  And in our case its even more important because the endo is dealing with a child.  I need an endo that remembers that managing the disease on paper and managing it in life are two very different things... and often life management does not work the way the paper management says it should.  This is the way Dr. H is... and I really appreciate that about him.

Who's on your support team:
Sugar Daddy and I have a FANTASTIC team of people backing us! 

The first is my mother-in-law.  She took on managing Sugar Boys care right from diagnosis.  Because both Sugar Daddy and I work she takes care of the kids during the day, and so a lot of the management falls to her.  She handles it like a pro!

Sugar Boy's pre-school teacher is new to the team, but definitely worth a mention!  Mrs. A has proved herself a true D Warrior!  Check out a post about her here.

The DOC, of course!!!  I love all my fellow D Mommas!  I don't know what I would do without them!!!  In addition to that, I have really enjoyed reading and following blogs of sever PWD's as well... Its interesting to hear about T1D through their perspective... AND it gives me great insight into how Sugar Boy may feel about life with T1D when he gets older.

Do you think there will be a cure in your lifetime:

I don't know.  This has changed for me, actually!  I used to think that there would be. There is SO MUCH that needs to happen - SO MUCH MORE that needs to be understood before it CAN happen... that I just don't know.   What I can say is that I pray to God every night that a cure will come in Sugar Boy's lifetime. 

What is a "cure" to you:

 A cure is everything I write about in my post "A Dream For A Cure".

The most annoying thing people say to you about your diabetes is:

I'm taking most of my answer from Heidi's answer, because its just SO true! 

"At least it's manageable."

Um, yeah, with multiple finger pokes per day, and having to change out his infusion site and CGMS sensor multiple times per week. With counting every single gram of carbohydrate that enters Sugar Boy's body, with lows that leave him exhausted and and cranky - far from the sweet boy we know he is, with testing him several times every night, with fears that he won't wake up in the morning, without being able to leave him with "untrained" family members or friends, with training sessions for teachers just so that you can leave your child with them for a portion of the day still knowing that even with the training session you will worry every second he is at school and the list could go on and on, but at least it's manageable.

The most common misconception about diabetes:

That people don't understand that there is a HUGE difference between Type 1 and Type 2 Diabetes.  That we didn't DO anything to cause this... that it's not because Sugar Boy had too many sweets when he was little or drank too much juice or because he was a formula fed baby or..... again the list goes on and on.  Its amazing what people come up with.

If you could say one thing to your pancreas, what would it be:

November 10, 2008 was SO not your day to quit!!   Get back in the saddle and back on the job - NOW! 

And, now, the meme goes to:

Hallie over at The Princess And The Pump.

Tag, Hallie!!!  You're IT!!!  =)

A Ducky Way

Lately we have been faced with some tough decisions regarding Sugar Boy and how we handle Diabetes. How much we allow Diabetes to have an impact in our day-to-day. How much we allow it to impact Sugar Boy’s life.


Facing these decisions and walking that very fine line between keeping him safe and healthy and letting him just be a kid has me thinking of an analogy that I heard once.

Our family is a lot like a duck. On the surface of the water when you see a duck in a pond or a lake, everything looks very smooth. Very calm, graceful and serene. Beautiful really. The duck is just gliding along without a care in the world. But what people often don’t think about is what is going on beneath the surface of the water. That’s where all the action is. That is where the duck is doing all its work. Its paddling like crazy to get where it needs to go. Its legs and feet are what does all the work to provide that beautiful grace and serenity above the water.

I feel like we are that way. When you look at Sugar Boy you see a happy NORMAL kid. He is just like any other 4 year old. In fact when compared side by side to his twin sister, on the surface, there is no difference. He plays just as hard, he eats the same things as she and he seemingly doesn’t have a care in the world. That’s what you see on the surface. But beneath the surface is Sugar Daddy and I. And we are working fools. We are carb counting, food measuring, blood glucose testing, sugar and insulin dispensing machines. We follow him around and keep our eyes peeled for anything that looks just slightly off so that we can catch a problem before it happens. Most of the time we do our jobs well. And most of the time he never really knows what it takes to keep him “normal”.

As far as I’m concerned, this is the way it should be. And as his Momma – I am happy to keep it that way!

Toddler Games and the Killer Smoothie

We had quite the morning and afternoon out.  Sugar Daddy has been dropping extremely broad hints about wanting a new laptop backpack for his birthday.  These hints have been coming since like February... so in order to finally put him out of his misery and stop the hints in their tracks we made pilgrimage to Best Buy to get him his new backpack for his birthday later this month.

When we were there, while Sugar Daddy was trying to figure out which one he wanted I took the kids over to look at the Leap Frog games and units that they had there.  We are going to be taking a trip to New Mexico later in the month via train (a dream come true for Sugar Boy) and I was interested in the Leapster units thinking that they may come in useful for keeping the kids occupied on the 4 hour train ride. 

The selection wasn't great there, so after taking the kiddos for hair cuts we ventured to the toy store.  Scary place with two 4 year olds... let me tell you!  After calmly (and then not-so-calmly) explaining to them that we were there for Leapsters and NOTHING else we finally left with two Leapsters (one green, one purple) and two games (Disney Princess and Thomas The Tank Engine).

By this time we were all starving - Sugar Boy was cranky in that "Feed me and feed me NOW!" sort of way.  We decided that if we had to sit and eat with these two children then we were going to do it at home, so that meant picking something up and taking it back home with us.  There was a Sonic nearby, and I for one thought that a cherry limeade just might be the miracle cure I needed at that moment.  So, we pulled into one of the slots and asked the kids what they wanted.  Hilarity soon ensued:

Sugar Boy pointed at the car-side sign and says he wants "that" sandwich.  Uhhhhh - that's helpful.  So, Sugar Daddy points to each sandwich on there until we figure out that he is asking for the Chicken Club Toaster.  Fine.  He also wants Tater Tots.  Whatever.  Then we ask him what he wants to drink.  He points to the sign again and says, "THAT!! I want a smoothie!!"  His face is all lit up.  Oh Boy.  What's he looking at?  He says "The one with the cherry and the cucumber."  HU??? Oh!  I see it:  "You mean, the one with the cherry and the lime?"  He nods.  I tell Sugar Daddy in a somewhat lowered voice, "The Cherry Lime Aid Chiller".  Sugar Boy says, "YEAH!  The Cherry Limeade Killer Smoothie!!"  His face is still all lit up.  Sugar Daddy and I burst into a fit of giggles... which has the Sugar Kids giggling just as hard.  Finally we recovered and I couldn't resist him.  So I tell Sugar Daddy - "That's fine - get it for him, I'll figure it out."  I may add that the usual thought of "after all if he were a non-diabetic child I wouldn't hesitate to let him have this very rare treat, and it has ALWAYS been our goal to not treat Sugar Boy and more different than strictly necessary.  So, we order (I may add that while Sugar Boy just ordered a premium sandwich and a killer smoothie, Sweet Girl was perfectly happy ordering the much more appropriate corn dog, tots and milk combo that is designed for children as young as the Sugar Kids!).

On our way home I pulled out my ever-present, always reliable Droid and pulled up the also ever-present, always reliable CalorieKing.com.  I put in "Sonic Toaster", find the chicken club toaster - 55 carbs.  Well, that's ok - he will only be able to eat half of it, so that's not so bad.  Medium tater tots - 21 carbs.  He will eat all of those, but that's still only 48 carbs total if he eats half the sandwich... not horrible.  Then I put in "Sonic Chiller"  I choose the Cherry Lime Aid one, and select the 14 oz (that's the smallest it came in) size that we got. 

100.

Yep - 100 carbs in that sucker.

OH

MY

GOD

That was when we decided that Sugar Boy is the one that had it right... Cherry Lime Aid KILLER.

When we got home we decided that we would closely monitor just how much of it he had... and portion it off if we need to.  OBVIOUSLY he was not going to be allowed to have the whole thing. 

Turns out that all he really wanted was the cherry on top... not the drink itself.  SCORE for mom and dad - who consumed 50 carbs each when we shared it, breathing HUGE sighs of relief that Sugar Boy was tickled pink with his cherry and a chocolate milk instead!

Checking His Own Sugar...

In the past, Sugar Daddy and I had asked Sugar Boy if he was interested in giving it a go.  He always said no.  Then one morning - he walked in and said he wanted to do it. 

All. By. Himself.

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Diabetes Art Day

So, I didn’t get my art project done. Maybe next time. A teaser: It was edible art!!! Next time for sure!


So, instead I thought I would share with you some pictures I took lately using the Retro Camera app on my Droid. Enjoy!