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Y is for Yay!

Yay! Only one more day of the challenge.    I think it was good to force myself to write everyday but I don’t think I am cut out to do this everyday.  I will be doing the Diabetes Blog Week May 11-17 and then take things from there. I started writing after my daughters diagnosis because I couldn’t find any blogs by parents with newly diagnosed teenagers.  I have found more blogs in the past year, but none that really speak to the same issues.  I am still working on being a part of the DOC.

I have started following a few blogs from the challenge and maybe gained a few more followers (thanks!).  So I will call it a success. I know I need to work on expressing my thoughts better and finding my voice so we’ll see what happens next.

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X is for Xanadu

This is a the most difficult one so far.  Seriously ‘Xanadu’ is the only thing I can think of so here goes….I love Olivia Newton John.  As a child of the 80’s, she was my idol and I wanted to be her.  I watched all her movies including this one. Grease is one of my favorite movies but this one, um wow.  I re-watched it a few years ago and man is it crazy bad.  But like most 80’s cheese movies, as a kid, I loved it. This movie has everything —  Roller Skating, dancing on the ceiling with Gene Kelly, fantasy, love story, music…I still love the song ‘Magic’.

Here are the lyrics:

Come take my hand, you should know me
I’ve always been in your mind
You know that I will be kind
I’ll be guiding you

Building your dream has to start now
There’s no other road to take
You won’t make a mistake
I’ll be guiding you

You have to believe we are magic
Nothin’ can stand in our way
You have to believe we are magic
Don’t let your aim ever stray
And if all your hopes survive, destiny will arrive
I’ll bring all your dreams alive, for you
I’ll bring all your dreams alive, for you

From where I stand you are home free
The planets align so rare
There’s promise in the air
And I’m guiding you

Through every turn I’ll be near you
I’ll come anytime you call
I’ll catch you when you fall
I’ll be guiding you

You have to believe we are magic
Nothin’ can stand in our way
You have to believe we are magic
Don’t let your aim ever stray
And if all your hopes survive, destiny will arrive
I’ll bring all your dreams alive, for you
I’ll bring all your dreams alive, for you

You have to believe we are magic
Nothin’ can stand in our way
You have to believe we are magic
Don’t let your aim ever stray
And if all your hopes survive, destiny will arrive
I’ll bring all your dreams alive, for you
I’ll bring all your dreams alive, for you

Powerful stuff!

W is for Weekend

I love weekends.  We’ve already covered that I am lazy so this should be no surprise.  I usually cook a lot on the weekends cause I am not home much during the week. I started out the weekend getting some baby love from my nephews.  They are just too cute.  On Saturday we did some community service at a local park, doing cleanup. That evening I did some cooking and kitchen cleanup. Sunday was church, more cooking and some television watching. It wasn’t a bad weekend at all.

Q is for Questions

Today I am questioning a few things in my life and not quite sure how I am going to handle them yet. Some are personal, some are diabetes related, and some are just general ‘how to deal with a teenager’ questions. Some days are easier than others and some days spiral out of control.  I do love my kids and my life so I just need to take a step back and try to find the right answers.

Learning from mistakes

Last night I flubbed up and ran out of Levemir at her game (only had 8 units and she needed 24, plenty at home just didn’t check units in the pen). I was wondering what to do…I had planned to give her the rest once we got home but it was about 3 hrs later.  I did get some advice that was to not give her any more Levemir then just check for highs during the night and give a correction with her sliding scale.

Since she always goes low, I went with that.  I checked her at 1:45 and she was 177 (the night before with no exercise and regular Levemir she was 180) so I figured we were good.

Checked with the dr. office this morning and they said it was fine.  We could have given the extra but it was ok.

There are so many variables and guessing it’s really scary but we just keep on going, doing the best we can.

Also, I meet with camp nurse yesterday for her week at camp.  She seems very knowledgeable and I was pleased with our discussion.  She is willing to get up and check her once a night so I am so grateful for that. The dr. office said is wasn’t necessary but I didn’t feel comfortable with that since she is so newly diagnosed and we don’t know how the daily activity level and heat will effect her.

Repeat

I feel like I’m on repeat, my daughter had quite a few nighttime lows due to softball games last week.  So losing an hour or more of sleep for multiple days is messing with me.

Waking up wondering what number I’m going to find, correcting with juice and waiting, trying not to fall asleep, then after recheck trying to fall asleep and not think about everything.

No softball yesterday but she went to the in-laws so the worry was still there but different. However her numbers rose during the night instead. Not quite what I expected but makes sense.

More softball later this week, so we’ll see how that goes.  She also has camp coming up in a few weeks, I am hoping to talk to the nurse in charge sometime next week.  The nighttime lows are my biggest concern while she’s there.

Game play

I think I got spoiled by the prompts for DBlogWeek, especially since I am new to blogging.  They really helped focus me on one topic.  Lately my thoughts are all over the place.  Sometimes I feel like I am getting information overload and sometimes I still can’t find the answers I am looking for.

My daughter is thriving and doing so well. We are signed up for diabetes camp next month and things are rolling along. She is playing softball and has four games this week.  Last night was the first and it went as well as it could. No lows during the game.  Actually she was a little high after.  Before bed she was still just over 150 but at 2am she was 74. She drank her juice and her recheck was 106.

There are times I feel like I am playing a game that I can never win and the fact that her life is at stake scares me to death.  I still don’t know all the pitfalls and don’t want to get caught up in the doom and gloom aspects but I need to be aware of potential risks.

And I don’t want her to worry about those things because she will and I think that’s where the mental health thing comes in for those that have been dealing with this longer than just the few short weeks we have.

School’s Out

Summer is here for my kiddos.  Not much planned for the next couple weeks but then there is camp later next month.  I shared a summer plan with them where they do chores, reading, and exercise each day they are at home for about 15-30 minutes each. They were not happy.  They probably won’t have many days at home but I thought it was worth a try.

My daughter has been doing great, but still having some afternoon lows.  When I showed her the plan, she said “Don’t I have enough to deal with?” I told her that she still has to learn some other responsibilities and not  to use having diabetes as an excuse.

My son just had tears streaming down his face and said I ruined summer before it even started.

Being a parent is great!

A Little Low

After I wrote about the fear of the ‘low’, she had a low or lows…

The first wasn’t a true low but was the first time she felt sick. It was a school and she was only 94 but she had never going below 100.

The next day she went to 84, same time.

Now she is regularly going to 75-85 around the same time.

The other day she went to 77, ate some carbs then wasn’t hungry before she had softball practice.  Then she was high 260-300 after practice before she ate and we covered both her carbs and used the sliding scale. I knew it was too much but had no instructions on how to handle the situation from her doctor.

I set my alarm for 2am to check her just in case.  I woke up at 1 and fretted about it for half hour before waking her up, it was 68.  She ate some smarties and rechecked at 153 after 20 minutes.  It wasn’t scary but I was glad that I checked her when I did.

The doctors have instructed that if she is playing softball to not use the sliding scale and to just cover carbs.  She doesn’t have another practice until next week so hopefully the long weekend will be uneventful. However she is staying two nights with my mother in law and I am just a little nervous.  She is capable but it’s normal to feel nervous right?