Finishing up Diabetes Blog Week – and combining the last two subjects into one. Dream a little dream – life after a cure. & Diabetes snapshots.
Thinking about a cure is odd for me. I'm not the one with diabetes – my five year old son is. Because Benny was diagnosed at 23 months, we don't really talk about a cure. I think that would be hard for him to understand (he just got the concept of the day after tomorrow) and I don't want to get his hopes up. Right now, when we talk about raising money for JDRF or Walking for a Cure, we talk about making diabetes easier to manage, and having less pain and poking.
To be honest, I have always had his Bar Mitzvah date in my head as a significant milestone. I'd love to at least see the artificial pancreas by then (mark your calendars, Benny will be called to the Torah in 2018!). And by the time he goes to college, I'd love for him to be able to sleep late and eat poorly as his friends will likely do.
(Dude can't wait for his snack!)
Here's a small part of my dream for a cure: that we won't have to go through crazy ups and downs like we did this past weekend. I hate when Benny feels bad and I often feel that, as his caregiver, I caused it. I know, we can just do our best, but you talk about Mommy guilt! I would like (selfishly) to see that go away.
Saturday was hot and late in the afternoon the kids and Slade went outside to play. When Benny came in hot and sweaty, I gave him a drink and an ice pop, and a bolus. I had just checked him before he went out and didn't think to do it again. Little while later he wasn't feeling so well. Hmm, wonder why?
He wanted to eat everything in the fridge (lows can make you very hungry) so we went from a snack right into dinner. But we rode the low pretty well and he never went above or below the 100s – which is great.
Next day – we were up and out early for a charity project - great morning of outside yard work to help Hospice House. The pump starts beeping… because we forgot to refill the insulin cartridge. I always have stuff with me, so it should have been easy. However, we're testing the Animas inset right now and I only had Cleo tubing with me. A brief moment of panic, then I thought to re-use the inset tubing and just change out the cartridge. Slade said something to me about that, but I didn't tune him in. I was just feeling mighty clever about MacGyvering the thing.
Especially after Saturday's crazy low, I was a little worried - Benny was shoveling mulch, pulling weeds and running around a lot. I let him have some full test lemonade and assumed we'd be in the low 100s. But when I checked him, this is what we got:
Over the next hour I checked the "click" (what we call the inset connection to the tubing), the inset itself and thought about what Benny could have eaten. Finally, I took the pump off and checked the tubing itself. It was full of air! There were a few drops of insulin, but not much. There weren't any bubbles in the cartridge, but apparently there was a little pocket of air in between the new cartridge and the old tube. Grrrr. I re-primed the tubing and we were back and pumping.
Later in the day I remembered Slade's comments as I had changed out the cartridge. He laughed when I asked him about it. Turns out, he was trying to tell me to watch out for air bubbles in the old tubing. It was perfectly logical to him that it could happen. Have to say, that never occurred to me! So exciting when diabetes teaches you something new (did that sarcasm come through?).
Great post! My oldest daughter was dx almost 5 years ago…it’s quite a journey, eh?
Just stumbled upon your blog – nice to meet you! I’ve been type 1 for 23 years (and actually just had my first baby) and as irony would have it, I was 36 mg/dl this morning. Nothing like a wicked low to really wake you up in the morning, right? :p
– Kerri.
I think the thing that motivates me more than anything to keep Caleb’s bg as tight as possible, is not wanted to see him feel those highs and lows. It is so hard not to feel responsible for it.