One More Halloween Post

I can't believe I forgot to write about this earlier.

Dominic woke up vomiting this morning, poor guy. On Halloween, too. Matt stayed home with him and I went to work for a couple of hours. We had a half day today; no classes for me, just had to print some paperwork to prepare for the weekend and join in the Halloween parade. Then I came home and took over so Matt could go to work.

Dominic felt much better by the time I got home, and was ready to have some soup. He asked me to look at his arm and see if it was very skinny. I thought maybe he thought he would get skinnier because he threw up.

"No honey, you don't look skinny." I told him.

"I mean like Daniel, when he got diabetes," Dominic said. Daniel was in DKA when he was diagnosed, throwing up for a couple of days. He lost a lot of weight in a short time.

"No!" I told him. "You just have a tummy bug! You are even feeling better, which is why you were hungry for soup!"

"I want to test my blood sugar, just in case." So I got the extra meter that we keep in the car. Dominic was trying to scrape his knuckle to get some blood, but I told him to stop that. We tried using our new Pelikan Sun device (which is not working, thank you very much), but no go on that. So I put a regular lancer on the lowest setting, and Dominic stuck out his finger and shut his eyes. It didn't lance him. We had to turn it two clicks before it lanced him and we could read his blood sugar level.

A perfect 88. Not to worry. Today.

Great Resource

I am on a couple of list serves, and they have certainly served me will with great information. One bit of info that I'd like to pass on is a wonderful, free resource for nutrient-dense, gluten-free cooking. There are 2 free, downloadable cookbooks from the Vitalita Culinary Group (VCG). Just click on the link. I've started looking through the recipes and they look great. I'll probably have to do some shopping to pick up some of the specialty ingredients (chestnut flour? haven't seen that around) and may have to go online to get a few of them. Gluten free cooking can be an adventure.

We all know that kids can say the darndest things. I had lunch duty at school this week and I asked one of the first grade girls what she was having for lunch that looked so good. She said, "Well, we're vegetarians because my mom has diabetes."

I said, "Really? My son has diabetes, too!"

She said, "Then I guess you can't eat meat, either."

I left it at that. Better not to get into the specifics of diabetes (oh, is she type 1 or 2?) with a 6 year old girl, especially when she has only 20 minutes to eat her lunch.

I do have a friend whose T-1 diabetic grown sun decided to follow a vegetarian diet because he said it helped him to control his blood sugar. I wouldn't have too much difficulty going vegetarian; I'm mostly there right now. But for Daniel... well... that would be tough. I shouldn't complain though; he eats a healthy, varied diet. He just likes his meat.

Squeak, Squeak

I have some wicked laryngitis going on. I taught 4 classes today, mostly silent! It's amazing how sweet and helpful the little kindergarteners were when they realized they had to be totally silent if they wanted to hear what I had to say!

The fourth graders thought it was hysterically funny.

I could float away on the amount of lemon/honey tea I've been drinking. I don't think it is actually helping my throat any. Only time & silence will do that!

The good news is that we're finally allowed to sleep through the night again. Last night was (supposedly) the last night of 3 a.m. blood sugar testing for a while. Until the next change.

Onward and upward!

That Groggy Feeling

Pumping has been going fine, really, except for the 3 a.m. get togethers that leave us senseless during the daytime. Daniel was running pretty high at night, and has forgotten to bolus a couple of times for meals, which really messes up the numbers. But even when he did remember, he was still climbing up into the 300's and 400's at 3 a.m. Our nurse adjusted the basal rates and last night we were finally in range all night. Whew. I'm keeping my fingers crossed for tonight.

My hubby wanted to go out on a date night tonight, and I just couldn't do it. I know I'd just fall asleep in a movie theater or a lovely darkened restaurant. It's been a big push to make it to 9 p.m. lately. Rain check!!

My friend Brad sent me a link to the following video. Love it.

See more Ron Howard videos at Funny or Die

New Routines

The first site change at home went well. But then Daniel decided at dinner time to wait until after he ate to bolus, because he wasn't sure how much food he was going to have. Have you guessed what happened yet? Right. Forgot to bolus. 3 a.m. blood sugar check was not happy. Daniel felt like crap. We're all pretty tired now, but we'll get through it.

I ordered Daniel an "invisipump," so he could wear the pump inside his pants. He doesn't like it there, but I'm holding on to it in case he changes his mind later on in his life (job interviews, etc.). Mostly he puts the pump in his pocket and stuffs the tubing in his pants. We have long tubing now, but will probably order the shorter tubing as well to have around. When he was pumping with saline we had the short tubing. Daniel tried putting a site in the back of his arm, and about 10 minutes later yanked the whole thing out when he was outside playing around because the tubing was too short. Live and learn. At night he drops the pump into a sock and pins it to his pjs. I have to sew some pockets into them.

Last weekend we we went to Deep Creek Lake in western Maryland. The weather, the trees, the colors -- it was all so beautiful. The only bad part of the weekend was that Dominic got pretty sick, but we went to an urgent care clinic and they set us up with antibiotics & prednisone, and soon all was well.

At one point Dominic was watching the birds flying to the bird feeder. Our friends suggested that he try to get the bird to eat out of his hand -- but only if he could sit very still. Dominic was determined. And finally, the birds trusted him enough (or were hungry enough) to take the food from his palm.

We did a couple of fun things before Dominic's fever spiked. There was an enormous corn maze with fun activities, yummy treats, hay ride, etc. Then we went to a store called Schoolhouse Earth that had a petting zoo. Spent all my quarters on goat food (although the goats were perfectly happy to eat the few remaining dandelions that I found on the lawn, and they were free). At night at there was a "haunted coaster ride" at the Wisp Ski area, and Matt took Daniel & Nora and waited in an incredibly long line for a quick ride down the mountain. I stayed in with Dominic, putting cold cloths on his head and dosing him with advil.

Time for sleep. That 3 a.m. blood sugar test comes way too quickly!

Saline Start

Daniel started pumping saline today. We had a great session with the Medtronic nurse rep, Tonya. At the end of a very full couple of hours, I felt a little more comfortable with the pump. Tonya wanted to know what questions we had, but it seems now like the questions will come once we start using this thing.

We were sent Quickserts instead of Sil-serts (I don't even know if I'm calling them the right things, there are so many pump-related words floating in my brain right now). Daniel is pretty slim & wants to use the angled inserts. Medtronic is doing the switch for us. So far they have been very helpful on the phone & in person.

At this point I am stuck thinking about clothes. Daniel wants to keep the pump in a pocket, but I'm worried about tubing sticking out and getting caught on something. But then again, I'm not wearing the thing, he is. He has to decide what is comfortable. I'm going to have to break out the sewing machine and put pockets into pajamas. I'll probably have to deepen some of the pockets on his pants. Maybe put a little hole at the top of the pocket to slide the tube through so it doesn't have to stick out anywhere. Or... what about using one of those sporty iPod armbands? Do they fit insulin pumps? I'm going to have to do some research.

By the way, can pumping saline make you high? Wacky numbers tonight. Well, Daniel *did* have pizza.

Today we had a day off of school because of the Yom Kippur holiday. I had a long list of things to do today and have taken care of all but 2. Those 2 will have to wait. I'm tired. When will a day off be just a day off? Whew! Looking forward to the weekend.

Life With Diabetes

Hey, talent agents! Here's Daniel (red shirt) in the Discovery Health Channel public service announcement for kids with Type 1 Diabetes!