It's been quite an adventure raising a now-teenager who was diagnosed with diabetes just after her first birthday! Please realize that what you'll read here is not intended as medical advice; it's just the ramblings of a sleep-deprived mom. Always consult your medical team about your treatment options, but do stop by from time to time for a bit of perspective.
Stealthy
This article appeared in our local paper a week or so ago. From the Associated Press, it describes Medtronic's 'smart pump' research, with its automatic shut off for low blood sugar. While a furrowed brow is usually the end result of my reading diabetes articles in the popular press, this one seemed fairly well fact-checked.
What caught my attention was this sentence related to fear of overnight hypoglycemia:
Parents of children with diabetes often worry so much about this that they sneak into their bedrooms at night to check their child's blood-sugar monitor.
I clearly need to change my modus operandi for 2 a.m. checks.
My current method involves stepping on several squeaky floorboards on the way in. I turn on the flashlight. About half the time I manage not to shine it right in her face. When I put a strip in the meter, it beeps. I stab her finger, then squeeze it, sometimes pretty hard, to get blood on the test strip. The meter beeps again. A couple of times a month, I have to wake her up to give her juice. I can't say I never drop something on the floor sometime during the process.
With a CGM midnight finger pricks aren't always necessary, but beeping and waking for juice are still standard parts of the picture.
Clearly I'm doing it all wrong. I need to get myself a black ski-mask and memorize the squeaky floorboards. I'll also need a 'diabetes device silencer,' but I'm not sure I have the black market connections to make that happen. The outstanding question is how to sneakily give a sleeping child juice...
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Now I'm picturing you in a black ninja outfit sneaking around like a criminal... LOL!
ReplyDeleteHappy that kids are sound sleepers. My husband turns on the *overhead light* for these checks! So not a ninja.
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