One Last Story For November

Once upon a time there was a girl with diabetes who survived the whole month of November!

She ate some leftover Halloween candy but not too much.

She took an airplane trip to Florida where she celebrated her 16th birthday in the Wizarding World of Harry Potter. In Orlando she figured out how to bolus insulin to cover Butterbeer. She ate at restaurants and guessed the carbohydrate content of every meal, sometimes more successfully than others.

She had some long, busy days in November, including one when she ate dinner in the car on the way from a piano lesson to jazz band rehearsal. And another when she took two difficult and stressful tests.

She had a couple fun but out-of-the-ordinary evenings, like one which found her eating Nutella pancakes at a diner at 10 p.m. after working backstage for the school play. And another spent at the last Friday night football game of the marching band season, when she ate dinner on a school bus before spending 3 hours playing the clarinet in the freezing cold.

She thoroughly enjoyed Thanksgiving dinner, especially the stuffing, the cranberry bread, and the pumpkin pie. And the turkey sandwiches with cranberry sauce on white bread the next day. And Thanksgiving dinner round 2 (a.k.a. leftovers) on Saturday.

All through November, she checked her blood sugar, changed her pump sites, used her Dexcom, explained her diabetes needs to TSA agents and teachers, carried her supply bag wherever she went, counted her carbohydrates, corrected her highs and drank juice boxes for her lows. But those aren't the parts of November she'll remember.